‘Not a safe place’: Gaza residents rush to rescue injured after Israeli attack

Israel declared Al-Mawasi a “security zone” when it invaded Rafah near the Egyptian border, but on Saturday Palestinians rushed to collect dozens of victims of the latest military strike.

Sirens blared and women screamed as bleeding and motionless children were pulled from the rubble.

“What have they done? They are children, children,” cried a woman. “Seven-year-old and twelve-year-old children.”

Al-Mawasi, where hundreds of thousands of displaced people had sought refuge, was turned into a desert landscape littered with chaos by one of the deadliest Israeli attacks since the war began.

The health ministry of the Hamas-controlled area said at least 90 people were killed, half of them women and children. Another 300 people were injured in the “massacre,” it said.

AFP could not independently confirm the number of victims.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said an attack in the Khan Yunis area targeted Hamas military strategist Mohammed Deif and brigade commander Rafa Salama, but there was “no certainty that the two were eliminated.”

Al-Mawasi is located near the city of Khan Yunis and was declared a humanitarian zone after Israel called on civilians to evacuate other parts of the Gaza Strip in May.

“We have been warning for months that there is no safe place for anyone in Gaza in the face of Israeli military bombardment,” said the UK-based organization Medical Aid for Palestinians, which runs health facilities in the region.

It was said that hundreds of thousands of displaced people had sought refuge in the “safe zone”, which had previously been the target of attacks.

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, threaded their way through the accidents to reach the ambulances waiting with their doors open. Others were piled onto carts drawn by donkeys.

“People are lying everywhere with their limbs missing. It’s a sight you can’t even imagine in your dreams,” said Mahmoud Chahine near a market hit in the attack.

Although Nasser Hospital reportedly said it was at capacity, ambulances continued to arrive, bringing in injured people on orange stretchers. Among them was a man who had tied a towel around his leg as a makeshift tourniquet.

A woman could be heard pleading outside the hospital: “Please, enough, for God’s sake.”

– ‘No warning’ –

The Israeli military said the attack on Deif “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 Netanyahu’s office, he had discussed the attack with security and military officials because he wanted to achieve his goal of “eliminating high-ranking Hamas officials.”

Hamas described the claim that Deif was the target of these attacks as “false accusations” designed to cover up “the extent of the brutal massacre” in Al-Mawasi.

Gaza’s civil defense said heavy fire was preventing its teams from reaching the “many bodies” scattered on the streets.

Eyewitness Mahmoud Abu Akar described how rockets repeatedly rained down on them.

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

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

Since the Israeli army ordered the population to relocate to Al-Mawasi in May, it has been accused of carrying out repeated deadly attacks in the area.

In June, the International Committee of the Red Cross announced that 22 people had been killed in an attack that damaged its offices.

Louise Wateridge of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) returned from Nasser Hospital on Saturday and said children had suffered life-changing injuries and people were angry that there was no respite from the fighting.

“There is no security here, no matter where people go,” she said.

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.