The Israeli military launched strikes across the Gaza Strip after an attack on a camp in al-Mawasi in the south killed at least 25 people, according to Palestinian officials.
Israeli strikes have killed 101 Palestinians and injured 169 in the past 24 hours, the Gaza Health Ministry said on Saturday, with many people under the rubble and ambulances and civil defense teams unable to reach them.
This is the highest daily death toll recorded in the enclave by the ministry since June 8, when Israeli forces killed at least 274 Palestinians to free four Israeli prisoners in the Nuseirat refugee camp.
On Friday, an Israeli attack near the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) base in the al-Mawasi camp – designated by Israel as a safe zone – which, according to Palestinian officials, killed at least 25 people and injured 50 others, involved two attacks. , reported the Associated Press news agency.
Witnesses whose family members died in one of the bombings told the AP how Israeli forces fired a second volley that killed people leaving their tents.
“We were in our tent and they dropped a ‘sound bomb’ near the Red Cross tents, and then my husband came out at the first sound,” Mona Ashour, whose husband was killed in the attack, told the AP in front of Nasser Hospital. in the vicinity of Khan Younis.
“Then they attacked with the second one, which was a little closer to the Red Cross entrance,” she said.
The ICRC condemned the attack on the camp and said the location of its humanitarian office, which was hit, was known to the parties to the conflict. It reported that 22 people died and 45 were injured.
The ICRC office in Gaza, which is surrounded by hundreds of displaced civilians living in tents, was damaged by nearby shelling in Gaza.
Firing so dangerously close to humanitarian structures puts the lives of civilians and humanitarians at risk.
— ICRC (@ICRC) June 21, 2024
“Firing so dangerously close to humanitarian structures, the locations of which the parties to the conflict are aware of and which are clearly marked with Red Cross emblems, puts the lives of civilians and Red Cross staff at risk,” it said in a statement.
“The attack damaged the structure of the ICRC office, which is surrounded by hundreds of displaced civilians living in tents, including many of our Palestinian colleagues.”
A survivor of the attack told Al Jazeera that the fire was “consuming” them “from all directions”.
“We had just finished eating and were about to sleep and get some rest, and the next thing we heard was the sound of resounding explosions destroying our places. We were left alone without knowing what to do. We still can’t process what happened,” said the survivor.
Reporting from Deir el-Balah in central Gaza, Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azzoum noted that in the past 24 hours since al-Mawasi’s attack, there has been an increase in Israeli attacks.
“Witnesses said that Israeli tanks carried out a sudden and unexpected incursion into al-Mawasi, launching a series of artillery shells against evacuation centers and makeshift tents,” he said on Saturday.
“The entire al-Mawasi area is an evacuation center. It is a small strip of land where more than 100,000 Palestinians have taken refuge. It is the place where field hospitals were established and is a hub for humanitarian organizations,” she added.
The Israeli military claimed there was “no indication” it was responsible for Friday’s camp attack, but said the case was under review. Previously, the military said its forces were carrying out “precise and intelligence-based” actions in the Rafah area.
Abu Azzoum also reported that the Israeli military attacked a residential neighborhood in the Shati refugee camp on the western side of Gaza, where Palestinians displaced from the north of the territory were told to seek refuge.
According to the Health Ministry on Saturday, more than 37,500 people have been killed and 85,900 injured in Israel’s war in Gaza since October 7. The revised death toll in Israel from the Hamas-led attacks is 1,139, with dozens of people still held captive in Gaza.
This story originally appeared on Aljazeera.com read the full story
