In Gaza, 40 dead and 60 injured in an Israeli strike on the humanitarian zone of Al-Mawasi

The Gaza Civil Defense announced that forty people were killed and sixty injured in the Al-Mawasi humanitarian zone in Khan Younis on the night of Monday 9 to Tuesday 10 September, in an attack that Israel presents as directed against a “command center” you Hamas.

The wounded were transferred to nearby hospitals, a Gazan civil defense official, Mohammed Al-Mughair, told Agence France-Presse. “Our teams are still working to find fifteen people missing following the strike that targeted the tents of displaced people in Al-Mawasi, in Khan Younis”a city in the southern Gaza Strip, he added.

The bombings left large craters in the humanitarian zone, said the Civil Defense, the organization responsible for emergency services in the Gaza Strip. “Entire families disappeared in the Al-Mawasi massacre, under the sand, in deep holes”another civil defense spokesman, Mahmoud Basal, said in a statement. “More than twenty (…) tents were completely damaged”he added, deploring a shortage of tools and equipment that is hampering rescue operations.

Humanitarian zone

The Israeli army said it targeted the area after identifying the presence of Hamas officials there, which it has been waging a merciless war against since the unprecedented attack that the Islamist organization launched on its territory on October 7.

An Israeli army plane has “hit major Hamas terrorists operating from a command and control center within the Khan Younis humanitarian zone”the Israeli army said. “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.”she said in her statement.

Hamas denied that there were fighters in the humanitarian zone. “The occupation’s allegations [Israël] “The reports 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.

Al-Mawasi, in the city of Khan Younis, had been designated a safe zone by the Israeli army at the start of the war; tens of thousands of displaced Palestinians sought refuge there. The army, however, continued to carry out periodic operations in the area, including a strike in July that health officials said killed more than ninety people, including Hamas military leader Mohammed Deif, according to Israel.