Israeli airstrikes on a tent encampment housing displaced Palestinians in Khan Younis, Gaza, killed at least 40 people and injured 60 in the early hours of Tuesday, the enclave’s civil emergency service said.
The camp in al-Mawasi was set up in a “humanitarian zone” designated by Israel. Gaza’s civil emergency service reported significant damage, with at least 20 tents catching fire and craters left by missiles.
“Forty people were killed and more than 60 injured while many are still under the rubble,” the BBC quoted the operations director of the Gaza Civil Defence as saying.
Eyewitnesses reported large explosions in al-Mawasi after midnight, with flames lighting up the sky. Khaled Mahmoud, a local charity volunteer, said that the strikes created three craters, each seven metres deep, and buried over 20 tents.
“Our teams are still moving out martyrs and wounded from the targeted area,” a Gaza civil emergency official was quoted as saying by The Guardian. “It looks like a new Israeli massacre.”
The Israeli military said it “struck significant Hamas terrorists who were operating within a command and control centre embedded inside the Humanitarian Area in Khan Younis.”
“The terrorists advanced and carried out terror attacks against IDF troops and the state of Israel,” the statement said, referring to the Israeli Defence Forces.
The Palestinian group said “the occupation’s allegations of the presence of resistance fighters are a blatant lie”.
“This is a clear lie that aims to justify these ugly crimes,” Hamas said in a statement posted on the Telegram app. “The resistance has denied several times that any of its members exist within civilian gatherings or using these places for military purposes.”
Pictures and videos shared on social media showed deep craters at the attack site, with the surrounding area littered with shredded tents, a bicycle, and other debris, according to the Associated Press.
Rescue workers used shovels to sift through the sand, while bystanders, illuminated by cellphone lights, dug with their hands.
The coastal al-Mawasi area has become overcrowded with tents as Palestinians have sought refuge there after the Israeli army designated it a “safe zone” during its invasions of the nearby cities of Rafah and Khan Younis.
According to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry, Israel has killed over 40,000 Palestinians in the territory since 7 October. Israel launched a ground and air offensive on Gaza after Hamas conducted an attack in southern Israel during which nearly 1,200 people were killed.
The Israeli war has also displaced about 90 per cent of the population of Gaza at least once since the beginning of the war, according to a UN humanitarian agency.
The Council on American Islamic Relations condemned the “latest Israeli massacre of Palestinians in a so-called ‘safe area’ in Gaza” and accused the Benjamin Netanyahu government of being a “far right genocidal” force.
The council’s national executive director Nihad Awad was quoted in Al Jazeera as saying that Israel’s “far-right genocidal” government was using “one-ton Biden bombs to massacre Palestinians as if they were sheep for the slaughter, not human beings deserving life and freedom”.
The US, under president Joe Biden, has supplied Israel with heavy weapons and funding through the war as well as diplomatic and strategic support.
Additional reporting by agencies.