Israel used US bombs in attack on Gaza’s “safe zone” that killed 92 people
Israel’s deadly attack on Al-Mawasi was one of the bloodiest in the more than nine-month-long Gaza war, according to weapons experts, and involved the use of massive explosive bombs supplied by the United States.
The bombing of the area declared a “security zone” by Israel turned the tent city on the Mediterranean coast into a charred wasteland, and the surrounding hospitals were flooded with victims.
According to the Health Ministry in the Hamas-controlled area, at least 92 people were killed and more than 300 injured by the barrage of fire.
The Israeli military said it had targeted two “masterminds” of the October 7 Hamas attacks that sparked the war. A senior commander, Rafa Salama, was killed in the attack, but uncertainty remains over Hamas military chief Mohammed Deif.
AFP videos of the attack showed a white mushroom cloud rising above a busy road, leaving a huge crater littered with the wreckage of tents and a building blown to pieces.
Here’s what we know about the weapons used in the attack:
JDAM made in the USA
Two weapons experts told AFP that a fragment of ammunition seen in a video circulating online of the blast site was a tail fin from a US-made Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM). AFP could not independently verify the video.
The GPS-based kit converts unguided free-fall bombs – so-called “dumb bombs” – into precision-guided “smart” munitions that can be aimed at a single or multiple targets.
The United States developed the kit after Operation Desert Storm in 1991 to improve accuracy in adverse weather conditions.
The first JDAMs were delivered in 1997 and, according to the US Air Force, have a system reliability of 95 percent.
Trevor Ball, a former U.S. Army explosive ordnance disposal technician, concluded from images of the attack on Al-Mawasi that it was “100 percent a U.S.-made JDAM kit.”
He said that given the types of bombs compatible with the guidance system and the size of the fin fragment, the JDAM was most likely deployed with a payload of 1,000 or 2,000 pounds (450 or 900 kilograms).
He said the fragment could also be compatible with the BLU-109 bunker buster warhead, which is designed to penetrate concrete.
Ball said that without “very specific fragments of the bomb body” it was not possible to clearly determine where the explosive charge was manufactured.
New shipment
The repeated use of such large bombs in the densely populated Gaza Strip sparked a humanitarian outcry and increased pressure on US President Joe Biden to reconsider ammunition deliveries to Israel.
On July 12, Israel’s main military backer announced it would stop supplying 500-pound bombs, but Biden said the 2,000-pound bombs would be held back.
The White House has repeatedly expressed disappointment at the civilian casualties in Gaza as Israel seeks to wipe out Hamas.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told two senior Israeli officials on Monday that the number of civilian casualties was “unacceptably high,” his spokesman said.
Israeli officials said their “precise strike” in Al-Mawasi hit an open area that contained a Hamas compound, not a civilian camp.
When asked by AFP about the weapons used, the Israeli military declined to comment.
Wes Bryant, a retired U.S. Air Force master sergeant and attack and joint targeting expert, said given Israel’s stated target, it would have been possible to avoid collateral damage in the area.
“In my assessment, all the civilians killed in this attack were in the complex and not in the immediate vicinity. Thus, the Israeli forces either failed to properly assess the presence of civilians or … considered the risk to civilians to be proportionate to the military advantage that would result from eliminating the Hamas leaders.”
“Absolute destruction”
The attack left Al-Mawasi in a state of “total destruction” with no water, electricity or sewage treatment, the aid organization Islamic Relief said.
It condemned Israel for its willingness to “kill innocent men, women and children to achieve its ultimate goals.”
Hamas said the Biden administration was “legally and morally responsible” for causing a “major humanitarian catastrophe” by arming Israel.
It said that Israel was using GPS-guided bombs, blind bombs, bunker busters and JDAMs, among other weapons, including weapons supplied by the United States.
Following repeated attacks with numerous casualties in recent days, a Hamas representative said the group was withdrawing from indirect talks with Israel about a ceasefire and the release of hostages.
The war was triggered by the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7. According to a count by the AFP news agency based on Israeli figures, 1,195 people were killed in this attack, most of them civilians.
Israel responded with a military offensive that killed at least 38,664 people in the Gaza Strip, mostly civilians, according to the Health Ministry of the Hamas-ruled territory.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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