Al-Mawasi, where thousands of displaced Palestinians have sought refuge, has been targeted repeatedly since October.
At least 90 Palestinians were killed and hundreds injured in Israeli military strikes on al-Mawasi, located west of Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip.
Gaza’s health ministry said Saturday that 90 people had been killed and 300 others wounded, some seriously.
The Israeli warplanes’ attack targeted tents housing displaced Palestinians and a water distillation unit in an area that a Gaza Civil Defense spokesman told Tel Aviv Tribune had been designated a “safe zone” by the Israeli military.
Footage from the scene shows Palestinians trying to rescue people from under the rubble, with children and paramedics among the injured.
According to Tareq Abu Azzoum, an Tel Aviv Tribune journalist in Deir el-Balah, in central Gaza, it was “another massacre committed by the Israeli army”, adding that the area was hit by “five bombs and five missiles”.
“The scenes unfolding in the targeted area are incredibly bloody and devastating,” he said. The victims were taken to Nasser and Kuwaiti hospitals.
A Nasser hospital official told Tel Aviv Tribune that medical teams did not have the capacity to receive more wounded, while civil defence teams continued to work at the site of the attack.
The Israeli military said in a statement that it acted on “precise intelligence” to strike an area where “two senior Hamas terrorists” and other fighters were hiding among civilians. It described the location of the strike as “an open area surrounded by trees, several buildings and hangars.”
At a later news conference, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the two Hamas officials targeted were the group’s military chief, Mohammed Deif, and senior Hamas commander Rafa Salama. He added that it was not immediately clear whether either had been killed.
“In any case, we will manage to reach all of the Hamas leaders,” the Israeli leader said.
Hamas claimed that Deif and Salama were not killed in the attack and called the premise of the Israeli attack “false.” It added that this was not the first time the Israeli military had made such claims, which were later proven false.
“The al-Mawasi massacre in Khan Younis was committed in an area where more than 80,000 displaced people live. This is a clear and obvious confirmation from the Zionist government that it will continue its war of extermination against our Palestinian people, by repeatedly and systematically targeting defenseless displaced civilians in tents, shelters and residential neighborhoods,” Hamas said in a statement.
Reporting from Amman, Jordan, after Israel banned Tel Aviv Tribune, Hamdah Salhut said this was a familiar pattern for the Israeli military to justify attacks on “safe areas.”
“We have repeatedly seen attacks on areas where tens of thousands of displaced Palestinians are located. This is a common tactic used by Israeli forces, who claim that civilians are being used as ‘human shields’ by Hamas officials, justifying the massacre of dozens of civilians.”
The al-Mawasi area has been repeatedly targeted by the Israeli military, with a strike in late May killing at least 21 people after hitting tents housing displaced families.
Gaza’s Civil Defense said the deputy director of its fire and rescue department was killed in another Israeli strike in central Khan Younis, and eight other members were wounded. It added that Israeli aircraft again bombed the area as Civil Defense teams tried to rescue people from a residential building.
At least 60 bodies have been discovered after the Israeli army withdrew from parts of Gaza City in the north of the besieged enclave, civil defense teams said Friday. More than 38,000 Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli army since the start of the war.
Last month, Israeli forces killed at least 274 Palestinians in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza during a daytime operation to free four Israeli captives.
The Gaza Health Ministry announced on Saturday that at least 38,443 Palestinians have been killed and 88,481 people have been injured in Israel’s war on the enclave.