“Entire families disappeared” during the night according to the civil defense. Early on Tuesday, September 10, the Israeli army targeted the Palestinian enclave once again, bombing a Hamas “command center” in the Al-Mawasi humanitarian zone, in Khan Younis.
“Terrorist organizations in the Gaza Strip continue to systematically abuse civilian and humanitarian infrastructure, including the designated humanitarian zone, to carry out terrorist activities against the State of Israel and IDF troops,” the Israeli army said to justify this strike while many civilians were in Al-Mawasi last night.
• Dozens killed and injured
The first report communicated during the night by the Gaza civil defense indicated at least 40 dead and 60 injured.
“Our teams are still working to find 15 people missing after the strike that targeted the tents of displaced people in Al-Mawasi, in Khan Younis”, a city in the south of the Gaza Strip, a Gazan civil defense official told Agence France Presse.
“Entire families disappeared in the Al-Mawasi massacre in Khan Younis, under the sand, in deep holes,” another civil defense spokesman, Mahmoud Basal, said in a statement.
• “9 meter” craters
Al-Mawasi, in the city of Khan Younis, was designated a safe zone by the Israeli army at the start of the war, and tens of thousands of displaced Palestinians have sought refuge there.
The army, however, has continued to carry out periodic operations in the area, including a strike in July that killed more than 90 people, including Hamas military leader Mohammed Deif, according to Israel.
In the images from the Turkish agency Anadolu relayed by Al-Jazeera, rescuers could be seen trying to find victims in a huge crater. This source reports that the “9-meter” craters were formed after the bombing.
According to the Gaza Civil Defense, it is “one of the most heinous massacres” perpetrated by Israel since the start of the war.
• Hamas denied having fighters in the humanitarian zone
The Israeli army said it targeted the Al-Mawasi area after identifying the presence of Hamas cadres there, which it has been waging a merciless war against since the unprecedented attack that the Islamist organization launched on its territory on Saturday, October 7, 2023.
An Israeli military aircraft “struck senior Hamas terrorists operating from a command and control center within the Khan Younis humanitarian zone,” the Israeli military said.
Hamas denied having fighters in the humanitarian zone. “The occupation’s (Israel, editor’s note) claims about the presence of resistance fighters are a blatant lie,” Hamas said in a statement on the Telegram messaging service.
Israel regularly accuses Hamas of using civilians as “human shields,” which the group denies. Despite the risk of killing and injuring civilians, the Israeli military has been relentlessly bombarding the enclave.
Since Saturday, October 7, at least 40,000 people, including many civilians, women and children, have been killed, according to the Hamas government’s Health Ministry. Almost the entire population of Gaza has been displaced at least once in nearly a year of war. Tens of thousands of people leave their homes or makeshift shelters with each evacuation, taking their belongings with them, sometimes without knowing where to go.
The United States, Qatar and Egypt are trying to broker a ceasefire and a hostage and prisoner exchange deal between Israel and Hamas, but the talks remain deadlocked. Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right government and the Palestinian Islamist movement refuse to accept the compromises proposed by the mediators.
- BFMTV.com
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