civil defence agency said early Tuesday that a strike on the Al-Mawasi humanitarian zone in the Palestinian territory’s main southern city of Khan Yunis killed 40 people and wounded 60 others, with the Israeli army saying it had hit a Hamas command centre in the area.
Civil defence official Mohammed Al-Mughair told AFP that “40 martyrs and 60 injured were recovered and transferred” to nearby hospitals following the strike.
“Our crews are still working to recover 15 missing people as a result of targeting the tents of the displaced in Mawasi, Khan Yunis,” Mughair added.
Civil defence sources said separately that the strike had left behind large craters.
“Entire families disappeared in the Mawasi Khan Yunis massacre, under the sand, in deep holes,” said civil defence spokesman Mahmoud Basal.
The Israeli military said in a statement early Tuesday that its aircraft had “struck significant Hamas operating within a command and control center embedded inside the Humanitarian Area in Khan Yunis”.
“The organizations in the Gaza Strip continue to systematically abuse civilian and humanitarian infrastructure, including the designated Humanitarian Area, to carry out terrorist activity against the State of Israel and IDF troops,” it added.
Hamas said in a statement on Tuesday that claims its fighters were present at the scene of the strike were “a blatant lie”.
Details about the strike in the Mawasi coastal community just west of Khan Younis that the Israeli military has designated as a humanitarian zone remained unclear. The area is home to many Palestinians displaced by the Israel-Hamas war in which the Israeli military has devastated the wider Gaza Strip after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel.
Footage circulating on social media showed deep craters at the site of the attack, the strewn ruins around it covered in shredded tents, a bicycle and other debris. Rescue workers used shovels to shift through the sand. Bystanders used their hands to dig, illuminated by mobile phone light. At least one crater at the site looked to be as deep as 10 meters (32 feet).
The Israeli military described the strike as hitting “significant Hamas terrorists who were operating within a command-and-control center,” without immediately providing additional evidence.
The Palestinian news agency WAFA said dozens had been killed and wounded, without providing precise casualty figures. It described five missiles striking the area, cratering the ground.
The Israeli military said it used “precise munitions, aerial surveillance and additional means” it did not immediately describe to limit civilian casualties.
Gaza’s Health Ministry says over 40,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since the war began. It does not differentiate between fighters and civilians in its count. The war has caused vast destruction and displaced around 90% of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million, often multiple times.
Hamas-led militants killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, in their Oct. 7 attack. They abducted another 250 and are still holding around 100 after releasing most of the rest in exchange for Palestinians imprisoned by Israel during a weeklong cease-fire last November. Around a third of the remaining hostages are believed to be dead.
Meanwhile, the United Nations agency in charge of aid for displaced Palestinians said the Israeli military stopped a convoy for more than eight hours on Monday, despite it coordinating with the troops.
The agency’s head Philippe Lazzarini said the staffers who were held had been trying to work on a polio vaccination campaign in northern Gaza and Gaza City. “The convoy was stopped at gun point just after the Wadi Gaza checkpoint with threats to detain UN staff,” he wrote on the social platform X. “Heavy damage was caused by bulldozers to the UN armoured vehicles.”
He said the staff and the convoy later returned to a U.N. base but it was unclear if a polio vaccination campaign would take place Tuesday in northern Gaza.
“UN Staff must be allowed to undertake their duties in safety + be protected at all times in accordance with international humanitarian law, he wrote. “Gaza is no different.” The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
