By Wafaa Shurafa, Mohammad Johjouh and Samy Magdy | Associated Press
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — An Israeli strike hit a crowded Palestinian tent camp early Tuesday in Gaza, killing at least 19 people and wounding 60, Palestinian officials said. Israel said it targeted senior Hamas militants with precise munitions.
The strike occurred in Muwasi, a sprawl of camps along the coast that Israel designated as a humanitarian zone for hundreds of thousands of displaced civilians to seek shelter from the nearly year-old Israel-Hamas war.
Associated Press video showed three large craters. First responders dug with garden tools and bare hands, using mobile phone flashlights until the sun came up. They pulled body parts from the sand, including what appeared to be a human leg.
“We were told to go to Muwasi, to the safe area … Look around you and see this safe place,” said Iyad Hamed Madi, who had been sheltering there.
“This is for my son,” he said, holding up a bag of diapers. “He’s 4 months old. Is he a fighter? There’s no humanity.”
Gaza’s Health Ministry said the death toll may rise as more bodies are recovered. The Civil Defense agency, composed of first responders who operate under the Hamas-run government, earlier said 40 were killed. The Israeli military disputed that toll.
The ministry is also part of the Hamas-run government. Its figures are widely seen as reliable.
The Hamas government’s media office said in a statement that the toll discrepancies arose from different methods of counting the dead, saying the Health Ministry counts only bodies taken to hospitals while the Civil Defense also counts bodies that have not yet been retrieved.
An AP cameraman at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis saw 10 bodies in the morgue, including two children and three women. It was one of three medical centers that received casualties, according to the Civil Defense.
“We were sleeping, and suddenly it was like a tornado,” Samar Moamer told the AP at the hospital, where she was being treated for wounds from the strike. She said one of her daughters was killed and the other was pulled alive from the rubble.
The Israeli military said it struck Hamas militants in a command center embedded in the area. It identified three of the militants, calling them senior operatives who were directly involved in the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas that triggered the war and other recent attacks.
Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, an Israeli military spokesperson, said in a post on the social media platform X that the initial casualty reports did “not line up with the information available to the (Israeli army), the precise weapons used and the accuracy of the strike.”
Hamas in a statement denied that any militants were in the area and called the Israeli allegations a “blatant lie.” Neither Israel nor Hamas provided evidence to support their claims.
Israel says it tries to avoid harming civilians and blames Hamas for their deaths because the militants often operate in residential areas and are known to position tunnels, rocket launchers and other infrastructure near homes, schools …read more
Source:: The Mercury News – Entertainment
