Gaza officials said at least 21 people were killed and dozens more injured when Israel attacked a tent camp housing displaced people in the southern Gaza coastal area of Al-Mawasi, which it designated as a safe humanitarian zone, on Tuesday.
The Israeli military immediately denied carrying out any attacks in the safe zone. Video footage verified by The New York Times showed multiple deaths and injuries in an agricultural area in Al-Mawasi as civilians sought shelter near the safe zone.
Dr. Mohammed al-Mogaiya, a senior official of the Palestinian Civil Defence Emergency Rescue Organization, said most of the dead and wounded were taken to nearby field hospitals, while others were taken to Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis. Dr. Mogaiya and the Gaza Health Ministry said that in addition to the deaths, 64 people were injured, 10 of them seriously.
It was not immediately clear what kind of weapons or shells landed on the refugee camp, or whether they were fired from the ground or from aircraft.
The attack on Rafah on Sunday targeted a Hamas camp and killed a commander and another senior militant official there using “precision munitions,” the Israeli military said.
Israeli troops advanced further toward Rafah, a southern city that the United Nations says has seen a million people flee in the past three weeks and which has been the main hub for displaced people evacuated by fighting elsewhere in the region.
Israel Previous occasions Designated part of Al-Mawasi as a “humanitarian zone”, but the area has seen a significant increase in population in recent weeks as hundreds of thousands of people responded to the call Israel’s warning Leaving the city of Rafah, where Israeli forces have been advancing in recent weeks, displaced people say Al-Mawasi lacks food and basic facilities, and the United Nations has warned that the situation is dire.
Johnson Rice, Arrieta Leka and Christian Tribert Contributed reporting.
