Armed men from Hamas’s military wing blocking access to site of blast, as interior ministry says investigation under way

Four people have been killed and more than 40 injured in a huge explosion in Rafah, which was one of the most heavily bombarded areas of Gaza during last summer’s war with Israel.

About 10 houses were damaged in the blast, the cause of which was unclear.



The four dead were adult men – including a father and son – from the Abu Naqira family, which is closely associated with Hamas. One of the injured, Ayman Abu Naquira, worked in the Damascus office of the exiled Hamas leader, Khaled Meshaal.

We can’t give a clear reason for what happened Gaza interior ministry

Early reports suggested the blast was caused by unexploded ordnance (UXO) left from last summer’s 50-day war between Israel and Gaza. Swaths of Rafah were almost obliterated during weeks of shelling from air, sea and land. Ashraf al-Qidra, a spokesman for the Gaza ministry of health, said the dead men had been clearing rubble from a house that was destroyed during the war. The home was hit in an Israeli air strike on 9 July last year.

However, masked and armed men from Al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s military wing, blocked access to the area, fuelling suspicions that the house or a nearby property may have been used to store explosives or rockets. Some locals said the area was a weapons base for Al-Qassam Brigades; others said Israeli unexploded ordnance was the cause of the blast.

A spokesman for Gaza’s interior ministry said: “We can’t give a clear reason for what happened.” An investigation was under way, he added.

At the nearby Abu Yousef al-Najjar hospital, scenes in the immediate aftermath of the explosion mirrored those of a year ago, as the dead and injured were ferried in. Women and children were among the injured, and four were in a critical condition.

Taysir Siam, 36, was returning from the market when he saw a fire in a house. “The neighbours said there was an old woman trapped inside. I tried to rescue her, but within a few minutes there was a big explosion, which threw me about a metre. I lost consciousness and found myself in hospital.” He had injuries to his foot, head, arm and back.

A woman who declined to give her name said she was inside her home “when suddenly I heard a big explosion, and glass and rubble started falling on me”. She sustained injuries to her face and hands.

The dead men were named as Bakr Abu Naqira, Abdul-Rahmen Abu Naqira, Ahmad Abu Naqira and Hassan Abu Naqira.

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Israel says that Gaza militants routinely store weapons in and under civilian homes in an attempt to shield them from Israeli bombardment. Rafah, which sits on the border between Gaza and Egypt and was the base for an extensive underground smuggling industry, is a centre of militant activity – not only for Hamas, but also other organisations including extremist Salafist groups.

But Israeli UXO could be the cause of Thursday’s explosion. According to the United Nations, about 7,000 UXO items were left in Gaza at the end of the 50-day war, about one third of which have been cleared.

More than 70 Palestinians have been killed or injured by UXO since the war ended. On 13 August 2014, two weeks before a lasting ceasefire was implemented, Rahed Taysir al-Ham, the head of the Palestinian bomb disposal unit in northern Gaza, was killed, along with three colleagues and two journalists, when a 500kg bomb he was trying to defuse exploded.



