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U.S.-made bomb used in Israeli strike on Rafah that killed dozens, munitions experts say

Analysis of images of shrapnel gathered at the scene of an Israeli strike in Rafah on Sunday showed evidence of a bomb that was a U.S.-made GBU-39, two munitions experts told CBS News. Dozens of Palestinians were killed in the strike and subsequent fires.( )

"I instantly knew the housing was a GBU," Trevor Ball, who worked as an ordnance disposal tech - or bomb diffuser - for the U.S. Army for five years, told CBS News. "I've seen a lot of them in this conflict, and I've even gone back and looked at past conflicts just to get an idea of what ordinance Israel has used in the past when I started looking into this, and it's a very distinct object, the GBU. It's a very unique round."( )

Photos and videos used to identify the bomb remnants were taken by journalist Alam Sadeq in Gaza, who visited the scene of the strike early on Monday.

He told CBS News he was searching the area, including around damaged tents that had once housed civilians, when he identified several pieces of shrapnel with English words on them.( )

He said he recognized the words from bomb remnants he had seen after a previous strike on a building in Gaza, so he gathered the fragments together in a pile and photographed them.

"The whole actuator assembly is unique," Ball told CBS News, explaining his identification process using the images of the shrapnel from the scene. "It's just not in other rounds."( )

Richard Weir, senior researcher in the Crisis, Conflict and Arms division at Human Rights Watch, agreed with Ball.

"One of the critical elements here, right, is… the tail section. Sometimes it's referred to as the control section or the actuator section, which moves the fins in the rear. That matches up directly with the GBU-39 small diameter bomb, which is U.S. made," Weir said. "It also matches with the idea of the description of the size of the warhead, in terms of the explosive weight."( )

Israeli military spokesperson Daniel Hagari said in a briefing on Tuesday that the Israeli strike on Rafah "was based on precise intelligence that indicated that these terrorists who were responsible for orchestrating and executing terror attacks against Israelis were meeting inside the specific structure we targeted."

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Spain, Norway, Ireland to formally recognize Palestinian state, saying it is ‘justice for Palestinian people’ and only way for peace in the region. ( )

The UN Security Council was set to convene an emergency meeting Tuesday over an Israeli strike targeting Hamas operatives that also reportedly killed dozens in a displaced persons camp in Rafah, with three European countries slated to formally recognize a Palestinian state.( )

AFP journalists on the ground early Tuesday reported fresh Israeli strikes overnight in the southern Gaza border city, where an Israeli attack targeting two senior Hamas members on Sunday night sparked a fire that ripped through a nearby displacement center, killing 45 people, according to Hamas-run Gaza health officials.( )

The attack prompted a wave of international condemnation, with Palestinians and many Arab countries calling it a “massacre.” Israel said it was looking into the “tragic mishap.”

There is no safe place in Gaza. This horror must stop,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres posted on social media.( )

UN humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths pointed to the widespread warnings of civilian deaths that circulated ahead of Israel’s incursion into Rafah, saying in a statement: “We’ve seen the consequences in last night’s utterly unacceptable attack.”

To call it ‘a mistake’ is a message that means nothing for those killed, those grieving, and those trying to save lives,” he added.

It has a flag. A national anthem. Diplomats. Even its own international dialing code. In fact, three-quarters of the world's 195 countries − 143 U.N. member states plus the Vatican and Western Sahara − say it is a state.( )

A decision by Ireland, Norway and Spain to recognize an independent Palestinian state, which officially takes effect Tuesday, comes nearly eight months into Israel's war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip, and decades into one of the world's most high-profile and intractable conflicts, between Israelis and Palestinians.( )

But what does this formal statehood label mean? And will these recognitions, which the U.S. and larger European nations have not joined, bring full Palestinian statehood closer, and improve the lives of Palestinians?( )

Rowan Nicholson, a scholar of international law at Australia's Flinders University, said that to qualify as a state four criteria are typically required: a permanent population, a defined territory, a government, and independence.( )

He said the conditions for statehood are both fairly rigid and a matter of debate.

"The criteria have developed over the centuries through the practice of states. There’s no single definitive written version of them; they are fuzzy and open to interpretation," said Nicholson, who has worked on cases before the International Court of Justice, a Hague, Netherlands-based court that last week ordered Israel to halt its military operation in Rafah, in Gaza, as part of a war crimes allegations case brought by South Africa.

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Papua New Guinea government official has told the United Nations that more than 2,000 people are believed to have been buried alive by last Friday’s landslide and has formally asked for international help.

The government figure is roughly triple the U.N. estimate of 670 killed by the landslide in the South Pacific island nation’s mountainous interior. The remains of only five people had been recovered by Monday, local authorities reported. It was not immediately clear why the tally of six reported on Sunday had been revised down.( )

In a letter seen by The Associated Press to the United Nations resident coordinator dated Sunday, the acting director of the country’s National Disaster Center, Luseta Laso Mana, said the landslide “buried more than 2,000 people alive” and caused “major destruction” in Yambali village in Enga province.Estimates of the casualties have varied widely since the disaster occurred, and it was not immediately clear how officials arrived the number of people affected.( )

The International Organization for Migration, which is working closely with the government and taking a leading role in the international response, has not changed its estimated death toll of 670 released on Sunday, pending new evidence.We are not able to dispute what the government suggests but we are not able to comment on it,” said Serhan Aktoprak, chief of the U.N. migrant agency’s mission in Papua New Guinea.( )

“As time goes in such a massive undertaking, the number will remain fluid,” Aktoprak added.

The death toll of 670 was based on calculations by Yambali village and Enga provincial officials that more than 150 homes had been buried by the landslide. The previous estimate had been 60 homes.

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The office of Papua New Guinea Prime Minister James Marape did not respond Monday to a request for an explanation of what the government estimate of 2,000 was based on. Marape has promised to release information about the scale of the( ) destruction and loss of life when it becomes available.

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