This attack is one of the deadliest in this war which has lasted for almost three months.
More than 100 people were killed in overnight Israeli air raids in central Gaza.
At least 70 people were killed in strikes in the Maghazi refugee camp in central Gaza, the Palestinian Health Ministry announced Sunday evening. Attacks on the Bureij refugee camp left more than 100 victims.
Health Ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra said the death toll in the Maghazi refugee camp was likely to rise.
“What is happening at Maghazi camp is a massacre committed in a crowded residential square,” he said.
Bodies pile up at the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital.
Dozens of others were reported injured and several houses destroyed in the attack. Families searched through the rubble to try to find survivors.
The bombs fell on houses and buildings, reported Hani Mahmoud from Rafah in southern Gaza, destroying neighborhoods and infrastructure, such as roads leading in and out of refugee camps.
As the Bureij refugee camp was also shelled overnight, around 100 people were killed in the past 12 hours, he added. The vast majority of victims are women and children.
“We were all targeted,” said Ahmad Turokmani, who lost several family members, including his daughter and grandson. “There is no safe place in Gaza anyway. »
Tel Aviv Tribune’s Tareq Abu Azzoum, reporting from Rafah in southern Gaza, said the Maghazi refugee camp is one of the most densely populated areas in the middle of the Gaza Strip.
He said it was one of the locations to which the Israeli army had previously asked Palestinians in Gaza to evacuate. Today, the camp is “completely razed,” he said.
“The vast majority of casualties right now are civilians, including a two-week-old baby who was killed in cold blood during this genocide,” Azzoum said.
He compared the attack to that on the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza last week, in which at least 90 people were killed.
The Maghazi camp was also attacked last month, killing at least 50 Palestinians.
Azzoum said areas surrounding the camp had been subjected to intense Israeli bombardment over the past two days.
The closest hospital to the camp is Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, but health facilities have become non-functional across the Gaza Strip as Israel continues to bombard the territory for the third month, killing more than 20,400 Palestinians since October 7 and displacing more than 80 percent of residents. the 2.3 million people who live there.
“The entire medical care system in the Gaza Strip is deteriorating and is on the verge of collapse,” Azzoum said.
Hamas called the airstrike on the Maghazi camp a “horrible massacre” and said it was a “new war crime.”
The Israeli military spokesperson’s office said it was investigating reports of the attack.
Since the UN Security Council resolution was adopted on Friday boosting aid to Gaza, the scale of air raids has only increased, Mahmoud noted.
“There is a huge gap between the level of destruction caused by Israeli forces and the promise of more aid,” he noted.
