Protests, general strike in West Bank following Rafah camp massacre in Gaza

Protests have erupted in several parts of the occupied West Bank in response to the killing of at least 45 Palestinians in the southern Gaza Strip city of Rafah on Sunday in an Israeli airstrike massacre.

Palestinians took to the streets of Jenin - a city often targeted by Israeli raids - Ramallah and the Palestinian refugee camp of Al-Baqaa in Jordan to protest the attack, which killed men, women, and children sheltering in a camp in a designated safe zone in the Tal al-Sultan area of Rafah.

Palestinians in Jenin and Hebron will also observe a general strike on Monday to mourn the Palestinian victims of Israel’s strike on Rafah.

Shops, restaurants, market stalls and other businesses will be closed throughout the day.

On Monday, hours after the massacre in Rafah and the subsequent protests in the West Bank, Israeli forces blew up a number of Palestinian vehicles in Kafr Dan near Jenin in another raid by the military, witnesses told the Turkish Anadolu agency.

Clashes broke out between the Israeli military and Palestinian residents of the town.

At least 36,050 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza by the Israeli military as of Monday.

Horrific footage shared online by witnesses and news outlets showed Israeli missiles raining down on the displacement centre run by the UN Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA in Rafah, showing the area set ablaze as Palestinians scrambled for safety.

Scores of Palestinians were seen visibly injured and killed in the aftermath of the strikes in the videos shared on social media, with many bodies charred from fires caused by the bombings.

The attack in Tal al-Sultan has drawn widespread condemnation from the international community.

The killings come two days after the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to halt its military offensive on Rafah.

Rafah has been under Israeli attack since early May, following months of threats of a ground offensive on the southern city, despite warnings from the international community against such an attack.

Rafah, which borders Egypt, until recently sheltered over 1.4 million displaced Palestinians, fleeing Israel’s bombardment of the rest of the Gaza Strip. However, following the start of Israel’s assault on the city, 900,000 are believed to have fled the city.

Israel has relentlessly bombed the Gaza Strip since October 7, killing thousands and targeting refugee camps, schools, hospitals and other infrastructure, in atrocities described as genocide by many world politicians and UN agencies.

Israel has also imposed a siege on the enclave, with little aid trickling in, plunging Gaza into a worsening humanitarian crisis.