Gaza’s civil defence agency said a strike Tuesday on a humanitarian zone in the southern city of Khan Yunis killed 40 people, with the Israeli army reporting that it hit a Hamas command centre.
Civil defence official Mohammed al-Mughair said that “40 martyrs and 60 injured” were recovered and taken to nearby hospitals following the strike on the area known as Al-Mawasi.
“Our crews are still working to recover 15 missing people as a result of targeting the tents of the displaced in Mawasi, Khan Yunis,” Mughair added.
AFP journalists on the ground noted that the strike had left behind large craters the size of several shelters.
“Entire families disappeared in the Mawasi Khan Yunis massacre, under the sand, in deep holes,” said civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal.
The Israeli military said in a statement Tuesday that its aircraft had “struck significant Hamas terrorists who were operating within a command-and-control centre embedded inside the humanitarian area in Khan Yunis”.
“The terrorist organisations in the Gaza Strip continue to systematically abuse civilian and humanitarian infrastructure, including the designated humanitarian area, to carry out terrorist activity against the State of Israel and IDF (Israeli army) troops,” it added. In a separate statement Tuesday, the army questioned the strike’s death toll provided by authorities in Gaza, saying the numbers “do not align with the information held by the IDF”.
The statement named several Palestinian militants it said were killed in the strike, describing them as “directly involved in the execution of the October 7th massacre” that sparked the Gaza war.
Hamas said in a statement on Tuesday that claims its fighters were present at the scene of the strike were “a blatant lie”.
Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel that sparked the war in Gaza resulted in the deaths of 1,205 people, mostly civilians, including some hostages killed in captivity, official Israeli figures show.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive in the Gaza Strip has so far killed at least 40,988 people, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.