Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza Strip: Israeli camp strike claims dozens of lives

GAZA STRIP: The Health Ministry in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip said at least 71 people were killed in an Israeli attack on a refugee camp in the south of the Palestinian territory on Saturday.

It is the latest incident with a large number of casualties in the Al-Mawasi region, where many Palestinians had fled, and comes as international mediators continue their efforts to end the war between Israel and Hamas militants.

The number of civilian casualties in the war has caused great outrage around the world.

In Israel, protesters were expected to hold another rally later on Saturday, demanding new elections and an agreement on the release of hostages still being held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

The demonstrators, who at times gathered in their tens of thousands, have intensified their actions against the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

A statement by Gaza’s Health Ministry said that in what it called the “brutal massacre by the occupying forces,” meaning Israel, in Al-Mawasi camp there were more than “71 martyrs” and 289 people were injured.

The Israeli military said it had carried out “an attack in an area where two senior Hamas terrorists and other terrorists were hiding among civilians,” citing “precise intelligence information.”

AFPTV footage showed sirens blaring and smoke rising in the distance as men with blankets collected the victims. Some were obviously beyond help and lay dead on the street.

“What have we done?” screamed a woman on the street. “What have we done? We were just sitting on the beach.”

Israel had in May called on Palestinians in the Rafah area to move to a designated humanitarian area in Al-Mawasi on the coast as troops entered the southern town of Rafah near the Egyptian border.

Displaced, destroyed

Later that month, a fire in a tent city in the area killed 45 people. The Israeli military said it targeted and killed two senior Hamas fighters in northwest Rafah in the attack that sparked the fire, but added that the ammunition alone could not have caused the fire.

In another incident around the same time, a civil defense official in the Gaza Strip said an Israeli strike killed 21 people in a refugee camp west of Rafah. The Israeli army denied the allegations and said it “did not attack” the designated humanitarian area in Al-Mawasi.

At the end of June, the International Committee of the Red Cross announced that 22 people had been killed in an attack on the committee’s office in the Gaza Strip. The committee’s office was damaged and is surrounded by hundreds of displaced people who have sought shelter there.

An Israeli military spokesman said there was “no indication” at the time of an Israeli attack in the Al-Mawasi humanitarian area.

The war began with Hamas’ attack on southern Israel on October 7, which killed 1,195 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP news agency count based on Israeli figures.

The militants also captured 251 hostages, 116 of whom are still in the Gaza Strip. According to the military, 42 of them are dead.

Israel responded with a military offensive that killed at least 38,443 people in Gaza, most of them civilians, according to a data list released by the Gaza Health Ministry on Saturday afternoon.

The war has displaced the vast majority of Gaza’s residents, leaving them without access to life-saving assistance in an area where much of the infrastructure has been destroyed.

“Circles of Hell”

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Friday appealed to donor countries to resume funding for the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees. He warned that despite long-standing Israeli opposition to the agency, there is no alternative to UNRWA as a channel for aid to the people of the Gaza Strip.

“Just when we thought things could not get any worse in Gaza, civilians are being pushed into ever deeper circles of hell in a terrifying way,” he said.

UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini later said the agency now had sufficient resources to operate until September.

Israel and Hamas have been holding indirect talks for months through Qatari, US and Egyptian mediators in an attempt to reach a ceasefire that has not yet been reached and an agreement on the release of the hostages.

The talks took place in Doha on Wednesday and Israel said it would send a delegation to Cairo on Thursday evening for further negotiations.

Netanyahu continues to insist that any agreement must enable Israel to achieve all of its war goals – the destruction of Hamas and the return of all hostages.

US President Joe Biden has outlined an Israeli plan for a six-week ceasefire that would see hostages held in Gaza released in exchange for Palestinians in Israeli prisons, with a second phase set to include talks on a complete end to the war.

On Thursday he said: “Both Israel and Hamas have now agreed on this framework.

“There are still gaps to be closed, but we are making progress, the trend is positive and I am determined to conclude this agreement and end this war that should end now.”

Biden again urged Israel to come up with a “day after” plan for Gaza and spoke of diplomatic efforts to persuade Arab states to help with security.

Hamas has proposed an independent and non-partisan government for both the post-war Gaza Strip and the Israeli-occupied West Bank, said Hossam Badran, a member of the group’s political bureau.

Badran’s comments came after Netanyahu – who critics accused of prolonging the war – demanded that Israel retain control of the Philadelphia Corridor, the Gaza area along the border with Egypt.