Israeli strikes tore a huge crater, set tents ablaze and buried Palestinian families alive under sand in a supposedly safe zone of southern Gaza before dawn yesterday, killing or wounding scores of people, according to Palestinian officials.
Israel said it had struck a command centre for Hamas fighters whom it said had infiltrated the designated “humanitarian” area in al-Mawasi, a vast camp on sandy soil where the military has told hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to shelter since ordering them out of their homes.
Hamas denied any fighters were present.
The attack was condemned by Arab world a s well as western states. UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy voiced shock about the strikes, saying it showed the urgent need for a ceasefire.
“We’re meeting at a critical moment — a critical moment for securing a ceasefire in Gaza, with the shocking deaths in Khan Yunis this morning only reinforcing how desperately needed that ceasefire is,” Lammy told a joint news conference with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
The UN special coordinator for the Middle East peace process Tor Wennesland also condemned the attack on an area which Israel itself designated as a humanitarian zone.
The Gaza civil emergency service said it believed at least 65 people had been killed or wounded, but could not provide a breakdown of casualties because many people had been buried and were still missing under the sand.
Israel disputed the casualty figures.
Rescuers dug with shovels through the night, searching for bodies and survivors buried where the strike had blasted a crater the size of a small football pitch.
Tents in the surrounding area had been incinerated, leaving only metal frames dusted with ghostly ash in a wasteland littered with debris. A car had been completely buried, only its top visible beneath the sand.
In the morning, mourners at a nearby hospital wailed over bodies heaped in white plastic bags or wrapped in bloodstained shrouds.
One of Raed Abu Muammar’s daughters had been killed. His wife and his other daughter had been buried but were pulled out alive. He carried the surviving baby girl.
“I was under the sand as well. I got out and started looking for my daughters and my wife. I saw body parts of the neighbours in my tent – I did not know those were our neighbours’ parts until I saw my family in one piece.”
“These are the Israeli targets. Look at them,” he said, gesturing to the baby girl in his arms. “We were in humanitarian areas that were supposed to be safe.”
The Hamas-run Gaza government media office put the number of fatalities at more than 40. It said that at least 60 others were wounded in the strikes and many remained missing.
The Gaza health ministry, which compiles casualty figures, said hospitals had so far received 19 bodies with other victims under sand and on roads that rescuers could not reach.
Residents and medics said the camp was struck by five or six missiles or bombs.
The Gaza Civil Emergency Service said at least 20 tents caught fire. It said the estimated 65 victims included women and children but did not immediately provide a breakdown of deaths and injuries.
“Our teams are still moving out martyrs and wounded from the targeted area. It looks like a new Israeli massacre,” a Gaza civil emergency official said.
Nearly all of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been forced from their homes at least once, and some have had to flee as many as 10 times.
Meanwhile, Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant offered his support for a hostage release agreement in the first phase of a Gaza truce deal, saying it would give Israel a “strategic opportunity” to address other security challenges.
Bringing the hostages home is “the right thing to do”, Gallant told foreign journalists.
“Achieving an agreement is also a strategic opportunity that gives us a high chance to change the security situation on all fronts,” he said.
His comments came as mediators the United States, Qatar and Egypt struggle to reach an agreement between Israel and Hamas to end the war in Gaza, which has killed nearly 41,000 people.
Gallant is among the Israeli officials who have clashed with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on war policy.
Israeli media last month quoted him as privately telling a parliamentary committee that a hostage release deal “is stalling… in part because of Israel”.
Netanyahu’s office accused Gallant of adopting an “anti-Israel narrative”.
