Nader Durgham
Middle East Eye / September 10, 2024
Israel says it hit a Hamas command centre in Al-Mawasi, without providing evidence.
Israeli air strikes on a so-called “humanitarian zone” in southern Gaza’s Al-Mawasi killed at least 40 people on Tuesday, according to health authorities in the enclave.
The strikes targeted at least 20 tents sheltering displaced Palestinians in the coastal area near the city of Khan Younis.
Eyewitnesses told AFP that at least five rockets fell in the area, with emergency services saying the strikes created craters up to nine metres deep.
The Israeli army said it attacked a Hamas command centre “disguised in the humanitarian area in Khan Younis” and that “many steps were taken to reduce the chance of harming civilians, including the use of precision weaponry, aerial surveillance and additional intelligence information”.
It did not share any evidence to back up its claim.
Hamas denied these allegations, saying “the claims of the fascist occupation army about the presence of resistance elements at the targeted site are a blatant lie”.
Gaza’s civil defence search-and-rescue organization said that the Israeli army used “heavy concussion missiles” and estimated that it was “one of the most horrific massacres since the beginning of the Israeli war on Gaza”.
Footage from the direct aftermath showed Palestinians desperately digging for their loved ones in the deep craters, with the civil defence saying “entire families” had “disappeared” in the sand.
Nearly all of Gaza’s population of 2.1 million have been repeatedly displaced due to ongoing Israeli attacks, with many of them forced to what Israel describes as a “humanitarian zone” in the southern part of the enclave.
Israel repeatedly reduces the area designated as a humanitarian zone, claiming some places in it were used by Hamas, forcing Palestinians to move to an ever-shrinking area that has also been bombed by Israel in the past.
Human rights groups and UN experts have accused Israel of collective punishment against Palestinians since the Hamas-led attack on 7 October, including the use of starvation as a weapon of war.
Since then, Israeli forces have killed more than 40,000 Palestinians in the enclave, the majority of whom are women and children.
Nader Durgham is a Lebanese journalist based in Beirut
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At least 40 killed in Israeli attack on Al-Mawasi tent camp, officials say
Al-Jazeera / September 10, 2024
At least 40 people have been killed and 60 injured in an Israeli attack on an encampment where displaced Palestinians had sought shelter in southern Gaza, civil emergency authorities in the enclave have said.
At least 20 tents in Al-Mawasi area of Khan Younis were struck in the early morning attack on Tuesday, Gaza’s Civil Defence said.
Al-Mawasi has been crowded with Palestinians sleeping in tents since the Israeli army designated the coastal area a “safe zone” during its ground invasions of Khan Younis and nearby Rafah.
Rescuers searching for survivors said they found craters of up to 9 metres (30 ft) deep at the tent camp, Al-Jazeera Arabic reported, citing local sources.
Witnesses described chaotic scenes in the area, with fires burning while Israeli reconnaissance planes circled overhead.
A spokesperson for Gaza’s civil defence said the initial assessment of the scene suggested the attack was “one of the most heinous massacres in this frenzied war”.
The spokesperson said ambulance and civil defence teams were having difficulty retrieving the bodies of people killed in the attack.
Israeli authorities said they had struck “significant Hamas terrorists” who had been operating a command and control centre embedded inside the humanitarian zone in Khan Younis.
“Prior to the strike, numerous steps were taken to mitigate the risk of harming civilians, including the use of precise munitions, aerial surveillance, and additional means,” the Israeli Foreign Ministry said in a statement posted on X.
Hamas, the Palestinian group that governs Gaza, denied that its fighters were in the targeted area and accused Israeli authorities of perpetuating lies to justify their “ugly crimes”.
“The resistance has denied several times that any of its members exist within civilian gatherings or using these places for military purposes,” Hamas in a statement.
Source: Al-Jazeera
