DEIR AL-BALA, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israeli forces have shelled a tent camp for displaced Palestinians. Rafah city in southern Gaza At least 25 people were killed and 50 injured on Friday, according to health officials and emergency responders in the region.
It was the latest deadly attack in the Gaza Strip, where hundreds of thousands have fled fighting. Israel and HamasLess than a month after the Israeli bombings Deadly Fire The attack on a Palestinian displaced camp in southern Gaza and the escalation of the military offensive towards Rafah drew widespread anger from the international community, including Israel’s closest allies.
A witness who lost relatives in the shelling near a Red Cross field hospital in northern Rafah told The Associated Press that Israeli forces fired a second volley, killing people who came out of their tents.
The International Committee of the Red Cross said the hospital was overflowing with the wounded, with 22 dead and 45 wounded, and blamed “large-caliber artillery shells” being fired just metres from the hospital. Hundreds of people, including many of the hospital’s staff, were staying in tents nearby, it said.
Ahmed Radwan, a spokesman for the civil defence in Rafah, said witnesses told rescue workers there had been shelling on Friday at two locations in the coastal area, which had been filled with makeshift tents. The Gaza Ministry of Health The number of people killed and injured in the attack.
The scene of the attack, identified by the Civil Defense and a Red Cross hospital, appears to be just outside an Israeli-designated safe zone on the Mediterranean coast called Muwasi. The Israeli army said it was investigating the incident but there was “no indication of an IDF attack” inside the safe zone, the acronym for the Israeli military. It did not provide further details about the incident or what the intended target was.
Israel has previously bombed sites near the “humanitarian zone” of Mwasi, a rural area with no running water or sewage systems. Displaced Palestinians set up tent camps These past few months.
Israel says it is targeting Hamas fighters and infrastructure and is trying to minimize civilian deaths, blaming the militants for the high civilian casualties and arguing that they are operating among the general population.
and Israel’s war against Hamas Now in its ninth month, international criticism is growing. Systematic destruction in GazaThe UN Supreme Court has stated: “Massacre” in Gaza — something Israel strongly denies.
The attack near the Red Cross hospital started with a bomb that produced just a loud bang and a bright flash, said Mona Ashour, who lost her husband after going to find out what was happening.
“We were in our tent when a ‘sound bomb’ exploded near the Red Cross tent. My husband came outside as soon as he heard the first sound,” Ashour said, fighting back tears as she hugged her young girl outside Nasser Hospital in nearby Khan Younis.
“Then they hit the second bomb a little closer to the Red Cross entrance,” she said.
Hassan al-Najjar said his sons died trying to help people in panic after the first attack.
“My two sons heard the screams of women and children and went to the scene,” he said at the hospital. “They went to help the women and fired a second bullet, and my sons were martyred. They shot the place twice.”
The hospital’s location is known to all parties to the conflict and is marked with Red Cross markings, the International Committee of the Red Cross noted Friday. The 60-bed field hospital, which showed a white tent covering an area the size of a football field, opened in mid-May to provide emergency surgery, obstetrics, pediatrics and outpatient care, according to a news release at the time.
Israel Rafa InvasionMore than a million Palestinians had fled to escape fighting elsewhere, and most have now fled Gaza, where the UN says there is no safe place to stay and the humanitarian situation is dire, with families sheltering in tents and cramped apartments without enough food, water or medicine.
Meanwhile, civil defense forces in the northern Gaza Strip recovered the bodies of five people killed and several wounded in airstrikes on two apartments in Gaza City, while an airstrike early on Friday hit a municipal garage in the city, killing five people.
Fadel Naeem, head of orthopedics at Al Ahli hospital, said 30 bodies were brought to the hospital on Friday, adding that it was “a difficult and brutal day for Gaza city.”
Meanwhile, the Israeli army said on Friday that two of its soldiers had been killed in fighting in central Gaza. No details were given on the circumstances of their deaths. Both were men in their 20s. Three other Israeli soldiers were seriously wounded, the army said.
According to Gaza statistics, Israeli ground attacks and bombings have killed more than 37,400 people in Gaza. Ministry of Public HealthIt counts combatants and civilians without distinction.
Israel then started the war Hamas’ October 7 attackMilitants stormed into southern Israel, killing around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting around 250.
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Associated Press writers Jack Jeffery in Ramallah, West Bank, and Drew Callister in New York contributed to this report.
