The Israeli military bombed a densely populated tent encampment on Wednesday night in an area of southern Gaza that it had designated as a humanitarian zone, saying the airstrike targeted senior Hamas militants who were operating in the area.
Wafa, the Palestinian Authority’s news agency, reported that at least 20 people were killed and several others wounded in the strike on a coastal area in southern Gaza known as Al-Mawasi, where thousands of displaced Palestinians are sheltering. The death toll could not be independently verified.
The Israeli military said in a statement that there were secondary explosions after the strike, suggesting “the presence of weaponry in the area.” It added that it took steps to mitigate the risk of civilian harm. Israel is trying to eliminate Hamas, which led the attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, that sparked the war in Gaza, and it says Hamas militants hide among Gaza’s civilian population.
The Palestinian civil defense in Gaza said in a statement on Wednesday evening that its rescue and emergency crews were trying to extinguish a fire that engulfed the tents of displaced people after the strike.
Video taken in the aftermath of the strike by the Reuters news agency showed people walking through the mangled and charred remains of their makeshift tents on Thursday morning, with smoke rising from piles of clothes, mattresses and other belongings.
“The flames of the missile were the cause of almost all of this destruction,” Ahmed Abu Shahla, a displaced man sheltering in Al-Mawasi, told Reuters. “There were two children here in this place who were completely burned.”
Abu Kamal al-Assar, another displaced Palestinian who survived the strike, told Reuters that “it was a big and scary explosion” that turned the area “into a fireball.”
Al-Mawasi was designated as safer for civilians by Israel’s military. But Israel has also said that it will target Hamas or its infrastructure wherever it believes it to be and the area has frequently been hit by strikes.
The military has repeatedly ordered Palestinians in other areas of Gaza to evacuate to the humanitarian zone, despite protests from aid groups that the area lacks adequate shelter, water, food, sanitation and health care.
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