Israel strikes Gaza humanitarian zone

Health ministry says at least 19 dead

AL-MAWASI:

Israel struck a declared safe zone in Gaza on Tuesday, in a strike the Hamas-run territory's health ministry said killed at least 19 people and the Israeli military said targeted Palestinian militants.

The strike hit Al-Mawasi in the southern Gaza Strip, which Israel had designated as a "humanitarian zone" early in the war, and prompted condemnations from the region and beyond.

Samar al-Shair, one of tens of thousands of displaced Palestinians who have sought refuge in the coastal area, said the attack came "as we were sleeping in our tents", setting makeshift shelters ablaze.

She told AFP the Israeli military had asked Palestinians to go to Al-Mawasi, "telling us it was safe. Where is the safety?"

Israel has carried out occasional operations in and around the area, including a strike in July that the military said killed Hamas military chief Mohammed Deif, and which Gaza health authorities said left more than 90 people dead.

As Egyptian, Qatari and US mediation efforts again appear to stall, Israel's Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said a truce and hostage release deal was a "strategic opportunity" that would give his country a "chance to change the security situation on all fronts".

Gallant said that after more than 11 months of war in Gaza, Hamas "as a military formation no longer exists" and has been reduced to "guerrilla warfare".

In Al-Mawasi, the military said it had targeted "significant Hamas terrorists who were operating within a command-and-control centre embedded inside the humanitarian area", which the Palestinian group has denied.

The Gaza health ministry said 19 bodies had been brought to hospitals since the early morning strike, but more victims were likely still buried in the sand.

The territory's civil defence agency earlier gave a death toll of 40 people, which the Israeli military said did "not align with the information" it had.

Survivors of the strike scambled to retrieve their belongings from the rubble, including mattresses and clothing, an AFP journalist reported.

The Israeli military said some of the dead were "directly involved in the execution" of Hamas's October 7 attack.

Hamas said claims its fighters were present at the scene of the strike were "a blatant lie".

Civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal said people sheltering in the camp in the dunes along the Mediterranean coast had not been warned of the strike, which left behind "three deep craters".

"There are entire families who disappeared under the sand," he said.

UN envoy Tor Wennesland condemned the strike, saying international humanitarian law "must be upheld at all times", while stressing "civilians must never be used as human shields"