At least 19 people were killed and many others injured in an Israeli strike on a designated “safe zone” in southern Gaza, officials said.
Gaza’s health ministry said the bodies of the victims recovered so far had arrived at hospitals after the missile attack on a tent camp in the al-Mawasi neighborhood of Khan Younis, where Palestinians had sought refuge, early Tuesday. Israeli attacks have frequently hit areas where its army had previously directed civilians seeking safety.
Earlier Tuesday, the government media office in Gaza, as well as civil defense authorities, reported that at least 40 people were killed and more than 60 wounded in the attack, with many more people also missing.
“A number of victims are still under the rubble, under the sand and on the roads, and ambulances and civil protection teams cannot reach and recover them, and they have not yet reached hospitals,” the Health Ministry statement noted, while reporting a lower toll.
The Israeli military disputed the initial figures and said the attack, which witnesses said involved at least four missile strikes, targeted a Hamas command center. The Palestinian armed group called the claim a “blatant lie.”
Al-Mawasi has been crowded with Palestinians sleeping in tents since the Israeli military designated the coastal area as a “safe zone” during its ground invasions of Khan Younis and the nearby town of Rafah.
Rescuers searching for survivors said they found craters up to nine metres deep in the tent camp, Tel Aviv Tribune Arabic reported, citing local sources.
Witnesses described chaotic scenes in the area, with fires raging as Israeli reconnaissance planes circled overhead.
“People were buried in the sand,” Attaf al-Shaar, a witness, told The Associated Press. “They were recovered as body parts.”
“Dozens of people are still missing and the civil defence is digging with their bare hands to get people out,” Tel Aviv Tribune’s Mansour Shouman reported.
‘Massacre’
A spokesman for Gaza’s civil defense said initial assessment of the scene suggested the attack was “one of the most heinous massacres of this frenzied war.”
The spokesman said ambulance and civil protection teams were having difficulty recovering the bodies of those killed in the attack.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations condemned the attack, with its executive director, Nihad Awad, accusing the Israeli government of slaughtering “Palestinians as if they were sheep destined for the slaughter, not human beings deserving of life and liberty.”
Israeli authorities said the attack hit “senior Hamas terrorists” who were operating an integrated command and control center inside the humanitarian zone in Khan Younis.
“Prior to the strike, numerous measures were taken to mitigate the risk of harming civilians, including the use of precise munitions, aerial surveillance and additional means,” the Israeli Foreign Ministry said in a statement published on X.
Hamas, the Palestinian group that rules Gaza, has denied the presence of its fighters in the targeted area and accused Israeli authorities of perpetuating lies to justify their “horrific crimes.”
“The resistance has repeatedly denied that any of its members are in civilian gatherings or using these places for military purposes,” Hamas said in a statement.
