Gaza residents rush to rescue injured after Israeli attack

Israel declared Al-Mawasi a safe zone when it invaded Rafah near the Egyptian border, but on Saturday Palestinians rushed to collect the dozens of victims of the army’s latest attack.

Sirens blared and women screamed as children were pulled from the rubble and taken to nearby hospitals following an attack on a refugee camp.

“What have we done? What have we done? We were just sitting on the beach,” shouted a woman from the coastal town.

The Health Ministry of the Hamas-controlled area said more than 71 people were killed and 289 injured in the so-called “massacre” in the Al-Mawasi camp.

AFP could not independently confirm the number of victims.

The Israeli military said the attack targeted Hamas military strategist Mohammed Deif and Rafa Salama, a brigade commander, describing the two as “two of the masterminds of the October 7 massacre” that sparked the war in Gaza.

The camp near the city of Khan Yunis was declared a humanitarian zone after Israel called on civilians to evacuate other parts of the Gaza Strip in May.

Hundreds of thousands of displaced people are seeking shelter there, according to the British aid organization Medical Aid for Palestinians, which operates health facilities in the region.

“We have been warning for months that there is no safe place for anyone in Gaza in the face of Israeli military bombardment,” the charity said in a statement.

Black smoke rose from behind a wide, ash-strewn street in Al-Mawasi, where bodies lay in pools of blood, some covered with sheets.

Men, struggling to carry the injured, weaved through the people who could not be helped to get to the ambulances waiting with their doors open. Others were piled onto carts pulled by donkeys.

Although Nasser Hospital reported it was at full capacity, ambulances continued to arrive with injured people on orange stretchers, including a man who had tied a towel around his leg as a makeshift tourniquet.

A woman outside the hospital might plead: “Please, enough, for God’s sake.”

– ‘No warning’ –

The Israeli military said Saturday’s offensive “hit an open area” that “was not a tent complex but an operational area.”

“According to our information, only Hamas terrorists were present and no civilians,” it said.

According to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office, he discussed the attack on Al-Mawasi with security and military officials as part of his goal of “eliminating senior Hamas officials.”

Hamas described the claim that Deif was the target of the massacre as “false accusations” designed to “cover up the extent of the gruesome massacre.”

Gaza’s civil defense said heavy shelling had prevented its teams from reaching the “many bodies” scattered on the streets.

Mahmud Abu Akar described a seemingly endless hail of rockets.

“Every time people tried to get closer to save others, they attacked,” he said.

“There was no warning at all, it happened completely suddenly.”

There have been previous reports of shelling at the camp, including in June, when the International Committee of the Red Cross said 22 people were killed in an attack that damaged the camp office.

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

Saturday’s attack came on the 281st day of the war that began with Hamas’ attacks on Israel on October 7. According to an AFP count based on Israeli figures, the attacks left 1,195 people dead, mostly civilians.

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’s military retaliation has killed at least 38,443 people in Gaza, mostly civilians, according to the Gaza Strip’s Health Ministry.

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