An Israeli strike on a crowded tent camp housing Palestinians displaced by the war in Gaza killed at least 40 people and wounded 60 others early Tuesday, Palestinian officials said.
Emergency services said 20 tents caught fire in the attack. Israel said it targeted “significant” Hamas militants at a command centre, but Hamas denied there were any militants in the area.
The humanitarian zone, Al-Mawasi, is a stretch of fields and sand dunes where hundreds of thousands of Gazans have been sheltering for months near Khan Younis.
The civil defence, first responders operating under the Hamas-run government, said it had recovered 40 bodies from the strike in the Al-Mawasi camp, a designated humanitarian zone and was still looking for people.
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It said entire families had been killed in their tents.
A Gaza civil defence official told Agence France-Presse (AFP) early on Tuesday that “40 martyrs and 60 injured were recovered and transferred” to nearby hospitals following an attack inside the humanitarian zone in Khan Younis, the Palestinian territory’s main southern city.
An Associated Press cameraman saw three large craters at the scene, where first responders and displaced people were sifting through the sand and rubble with garden tools and their bare hands by the light of mobile phones after the predawn strike.
The Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, one of three hospitals to receive casualties, said around two dozen bodies had been brought in from the strike
The Israeli military said it had struck Hamas militants who were operating in a command-and-control centre.
Hamas released a statement denying any militants were in the area. Neither Israel nor Hamas provided evidence to substantiate their claims.
The war has caused vast destruction and displaced around 90 per cent of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million, often multiple times. Israeli evacuation orders, which now cover around 90 per cent of the territory, have pushed hundreds of thousands of people into Al-Mawasi, a sprawling line of tent camps along the coast.
Aid groups have struggled to provide even basic services in Al-Mawasi, and Israel has occasionally struck targets there despite designating it as a humanitarian zone.
Gaza’s Health Ministry says more than 40,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since the war began. It does not differentiate between fighters and civilians in its count.
Hamas-led militants killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, in their October 7th attack.
They abducted another 250 people and are still holding around 100 after releasing most of the rest in exchange for Palestinians imprisoned by Israel during a weeklong cease-fire last November.
Around a third of the remaining hostages are believed to be dead.
[ Israel closes border crossings with Jordan after fatal shootingsOpens in new window ]
The main UN agency providing aid to Palestinians said the Israeli military stopped a convoy for more than eight hours on Monday, despite co-ordinating with the troops.
United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East head Philippe Lazzarini said the staffers who were held had been trying to work on a polio vaccination campaign in northern Gaza and Gaza City.
The vaccination drive, begun after doctors discovered the first polio case in the Palestinian enclave in 25 years, aims to vaccinate 640,000 children during a war that has destroyed the healthcare system. – AP