Analysis. The massacre of Rafah recalls the strategy of annihilation perpetrated by the Sri Lankan military against civilians in a ‘No Fire Zone’ in 2009. This time we’re watching it live.

written by Nicola Perugini, Neve Gordon

Topic Middle East and North Africa

May 29, 2024

As all eyes are on Block 2371 in Rafah – the perimeter designated as a “safe humanitarian zone” by the Israeli military on May 22, before it bombed it on May 26, massacring at least 45 civilian refugees in their tents – a 2009 confidential telegram intercepted by Wikileaks, describing the plight of civilians in the final days of the civil war in Sri Lanka, comes to mind.

Sent in mid-May from the U.S. Embassy in Colombo to the State Department in Washington, the telegram recounted how the bishop of Mannar had telephoned to ask the embassy to intervene on behalf of seven Catholic priests trapped in a so-called No Fire Zone, set up as a safe area by the Sri Lankan military.

The bishop estimated that there were still between 60,000 and 75,000 civilians confined in that zone, located on a small piece of coastal land about twice the size of New York’s Central Park. After the bishop’s call, the U.S. ambassador spoke with the Sri Lankan foreign minister, asking him to alert the military that the majority of the people remaining in the No Fire Zone were civilians – it seems he was concerned that because of the intense artillery fire, that strip of land along the sea had become a death trap.

Similar to the experience of Palestinians currently taking refuge in Rafah, at one point the........

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