An Israeli airstrike triggered a fire that killed 45 people in a tent camp in the Gazan city of Rafah, officials said on Monday, prompting an outcry from global leaders who urged the implementation of a World Court order to halt Israel’s assault.

Palestinian families rushed to hospitals to prepare their dead for burial after a strike late on Sunday night set tents and rickety metal shelters ablaze, Reuters reported.

Israel’s military, which is trying to eliminate Hamas in Gaza, said it was investigating reports that a strike it carried out against commanders of the Islamist militant group in Rafah had caused the fire.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the strike had not been intended to cause civilian casualties.

“In Rafah, we already evacuated about 1 million non-combatant residents and despite our utmost effort not to harm non-combatants, something unfortunately went tragically wrong,” he said in a speech in parliament that was interrupted by shouting from opposition lawmakers.

Survivors said families were preparing to sleep when the strike hit the Tel Al-Sultan neighbourhood where thousands were sheltering after Israeli forces began a ground offensive in the east of Rafah over two weeks ago.

“We were praying… and we were getting our children’s beds ready to sleep. There was nothing unusual, then we heard a very loud noise, and fire erupted around us,” said Umm Mohamed Al-Attar, a Palestinian mother in a red headscarf.

“All the children started screaming… The sound was terrifying; we felt like the metal was about to collapse on us, and shrapnel fell into the rooms.”

Video footage obtained by Reuters showed a fire raging in the darkness and people screaming in panic. A group of young men tried to haul away sheets of corrugated iron and a hose from a single fire truck began to douse the flames.

More than half of the dead were women, children, and elderly people, health officials in Hamas-run Gaza said, adding that the death toll was likely to rise from people with severe burns.

Medics later said an Israeli airstrike on Monday on a house in Rafah had killed seven Palestinians, with several others wounded.

Israel’s military said Sunday’s strike, based on “precise intelligence”, had eliminated Hamas’ chief of staff for the second and larger Palestinian territory, the West Bank, plus another official behind deadly attacks on Israelis.

That followed the interception of eight rockets fired towards Israel from the Rafah area in Gaza’s southern tip.

More than 2,000 people could be buried alive by a massive landslide in Papua New Guinea last week, the government said on Monday, as treacherous terrain and the difficulty of getting aid to the site raises the risk that few survivors will be found.

The National Disaster Centre raised the number suspected buried to 2,000 in a letter to the U.N. released on Monday but dated Sunday.

A separate U.N. agency put the possible death toll much lower, at more than 670 people.

The variance reflects the remote site and the difficulty getting an accurate population estimate. PNG’s last credible census was in 2000 and many people live in isolated mountainous villages.

The landslide crashed through Yambali village in the country’s north at around 3 a.m. on Friday while most of the community slept.

More than 150 houses were buried beneath debris almost two stories high. Rescuers told local media they heard screams from beneath the earth.

“I have 18 of my family members being buried under the debris and soil that I am standing on, and a lot more family members in the village I cannot count,” resident Evit Kambu told Reuters. “But I cannot retrieve the bodies so I am standing here helplessly.”

Heavy equipment and aid has been slow to arrive due to the remote location while tribal warfare nearby has forced aid workers to travel in convoys escorted by soldiers and return to the provincial capital, roughly 60 km away, at night.

The first excavator only reached the site late on Sunday, according to a U.N. official. Six bodies have been retrieved so far.

Contact with other parts of the country is difficult due to patchy reception and limited electricity at the site, Reuters reported.

Even when rescue teams can get to the site, rain, unstable ground and flowing water is making it extremely dangerous for residents and rescue teams to clear debris, according to Serhan Aktoprak, the chief of the U.N. migration agency’s mission in PNG.

More than 300 people and over 1,100 houses were buried by a massive landslide that levelled a remote village in northern Papua New Guinea, local media reported on Saturday.

Hundreds are feared dead in the landslide that hit Kaokalam village in Enga Province, about 600 km (370 miles) northwest of capital Port Moresby, around 3 a.m. on Friday (1900 GMT on Thursday), Reuters reported.

The landslide in the Pacific nation north of Australia buried more than 300 people and 1,182 houses, the Papua New Guinea Post Courier said, citing comments from a member of the country’s parliament, Aimos Akem. Akem did not immediately respond to Reuters request for comment via social media.

More than six villages had been impacted by the landslide in the province’s Mulitaka region, Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) said on Saturday.

“Australia’s High Commission in Port Moresby is in close contact with PNG authorities for further assessments on the extent of the damage and casualties,” a DFAT spokesperson said in a statement.

The Australian Broadcasting Corp reported on Saturday that four bodies had been retrieved from the area after emergency teams reached the sparsely populated area, where the death toll is expected to rise.

The landslide has blocked highway access, making helicopters the only way to reach the area, the broadcaster reported.

Social media footage posted by villager Ninga Role showed people clambering over rocks, uprooted trees and mounds of dirt searching for survivors. Women could be heard weeping in the background.

Prime Minister James Marape has said disaster officials, the Defence Force and the Department of Works and Highways were assisting with relief and recovery efforts.