Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip – At least 40 people were killed and 60 others wounded early Tuesday in an Israeli strike on a crowded tent camp of Palestinians displaced by the war in Gaza, Palestinian officials said. Israel said it targeted “significant” Hamas militants, a charge denied by the terror group.
It was one of the deadliest strikes yet in Mwasi, an area of crowded tent camps on the Gaza border that Israel has designated as a humanitarian zone for thousands of civilians to seek refuge. Israel-Hamas War.
Civil Defense, a first responder operating under the Hamas-run government, said it had recovered 40 bodies from the strike and was still searching for people. He says whole families were killed in their tents.
An Associated Press camera operator saw three large craters at the scene, where first responders and displaced people were digging through sand and debris with their bare hands by the light of garden tools and mobile phones. They pulled body parts from the sand, including what appeared to be human legs.
Attaf al-Shar, a displaced person from the southern city of Rafah, said the strike happened just after midnight and caused the fire.
“People were buried in the sand. They were recovered as body parts,” she told an Associated Press reporter at the scene.
Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, one of three hospitals to receive casualties, said about two dozen bodies had been brought in from the strike.
The Israeli military said it struck Hamas militants operating in a command and control center. It said its forces used precision weapons, aerial surveillance and other means to avoid civilian casualties.
Israel says it tries to avoid harming civilians throughout the war, which Hamas’s Oct. 7 was provoked by the attack. It blames Hamas for their deaths because the militants operate mostly in residential areas and are known to locate tunnels, rocket launchers and other infrastructure near homes, schools and mosques.
Hamas issued a statement denying the presence of any terrorists in the area. Neither Israel nor Hamas has provided evidence to support their claims.
The war has caused massive destruction and About 90% of Gaza’s 2.3 million population displacedMany times many times. Israeli evacuation orders, which now cover about 90% of the territory, have pushed tens of thousands of people into Mawasi, a vast line of rickety tent camps along the coast.
Aid groups have struggled to provide basic services in Mawasi, and Israel has frequently attacked targets there despite designating it a humanitarian zone.
Gaza’s Ministry of Health says More than 40,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza Since the war began. It does not distinguish between combatants and civilians in its calculations.
Hamas-led militants killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians. His Oct. In the attack of 7. They kidnapped another 250 people and are still holding about 100 after releasing most of the rest in exchange for Palestinians imprisoned by Israel during a week-long ceasefire last November. Around a third of the remaining hostages Presumed to be dead.
The United States, Egypt and Qatar have spent much of this year trying to negotiate a ceasefire and hostage releases, but talks have stalled. Trapped again and again Because Israel and Hamas have accused each other of making new and unacceptable demands.
The war has plunged Gaza into a humanitarian crisis, and humanitarian groups have Struggled to provide support Because of the ongoing fighting, Israeli sanctions and the breakdown of law and order. An international authority on the severity of the hunger crisis said in June that the region is on High risk of drought.
The main United Nations agency providing aid to the Palestinians said Israeli troops intercepted a convoy. Polio vaccination campaign For more than eight hours on Monday, even as she coordinated with the military. UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini said the personnel who were captured were participating in operations in northern Gaza and Gaza City.
“The convoy was stopped at gunpoint after the Wadi Gaza checkpoint with threats to detain UN staff,” he wrote on social platform X. “UN armored vehicles were heavily damaged by bulldozers.”
He said the staff and convoy later returned to the UN base, but it was unclear whether a polio vaccination campaign would be carried out in northern Gaza on Tuesday.
The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The vaccination drive, launched 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 decimated the health care system.
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