The Israeli army attack on the humanitarian zone of Al-Mawasi in Khan Younes on the night of Monday 9 to Tuesday 10 September left at least nineteen dead and around sixty wounded, the Hamas-run Gaza Ministry of Health reported Tuesday afternoon on Telegram. “Several victims are still under the rubble, under the sand and on the roads”the ministry added.
A few hours earlier, the enclave’s civil defense had announced an initial balance of forty dead and about sixty wounded in this offensive that Israel presents as directed against a “command center” Hamas. The wounded were taken to nearby hospitals, Gaza civil defense official Mohammed Al-Mughair told Agence France-Presse.
trusting in “a first assessment”The Israeli army had denied the scope of the first assessment published by the civil defense, stating on Tuesday morning that these figures “They do not correspond to the information in the possession of the IDF, nor to the precise munitions used, nor to the precision of the attack”.
The bombings left large craters in the humanitarian zone, said the Civil Defence, the organisation responsible for emergency services in the Gaza Strip. “Entire families disappeared in the Al-Mawasi massacre, under the sand, in deep holes”said another Civil Defense spokesman, Mahmoud Basal, in a statement. “More than twenty (…) The tents were completely damaged.He added, regretting the shortage of tools and equipment that hampers rescue operations.
Humanitarian zone
The Israeli army said it attacked the area after identifying the presence of Hamas cadres there, against whom it has been waging a merciless war since the Islamist organisation launched an unprecedented attack on its territory on 7 October.
An Israeli army plane. “hit key Hamas terrorists operating from a command and control center inside the humanitarian zone of Khan Yunis”specified the Israeli army. In its message posted on X, the Israeli army claims to have especially attacked “Samer Ismail Khadr Abu Daqqa, head of Hamas’s air unit in Gaza; Osama Tabesh, head of the observation and targeting department at Hamas’s military intelligence headquarters; Ayman Mabhouh, a senior Hamas terrorist official”.
“Terrorist organizations in the Gaza Strip continue to systematically abuse civilian and humanitarian infrastructure, including the designated humanitarian zone, to carry out terrorist activities against the State of Israel and IDF troops.”Hamas said in its press statement that there were no fighters in the humanitarian zone. “The accusations of occupation [Israël] “The claims about the presence of resistance fighters are a blatant lie”Hamas said in a statement on the Telegram messaging service.
Israel periodically accuses Hamas of using civilians as “human shields”which the group denies. Al-Mawasi, in the town of Khan Yunis, had been designated a safe zone by the Israeli army at the start of the war; tens of thousands of displaced Palestinians have found refuge there. However, the army continued to carry out regular operations in the area, including an attack in July that health authorities say killed more than ninety people, including Hamas military leader Mohammed Deif Israel.
