For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails
Sign up to our free breaking news emails
Sign up to our free breaking news emails
Israeli strikes blasted huge craters in a designated safe zone in southern Gaza before dawn on Tuesday, burying Palestinian families under sand and killing at least 19 in what the United Nations called an “unconscionable” act.
The strikes occurred in Muwasi, a sprawl of crowded tent camps along the Gaza coast that Israel designated as a humanitarian zone for hundreds of thousands of displaced civilians to seek shelter from the nearly year-old Israel-Hamas war.
Video showed rescuers digging through the sand and rubble with garden tools and bare hands, using mobile phone torches until the sun came up.
Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry said the death toll could rise as more bodies are recovered.
“We were told to go to Muwasi, to the safe area … look around you and see this safe place,” said Iyad Hamed Madi, who had been sheltering there.
Israel said it targeted senior Hamas militants with precise munitions. Hamas released a statement denying that any militants were in the area and calling the Israeli allegations a “blatant lie”. Neither Israel nor Hamas provided evidence to substantiate their claims.
“The use of heavy weapons in densely populated areas is unconscionable,” said Stephane Dujarric, a spokesperson for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. “Palestinians had moved to this area in Khan Younis in search for shelter, in search of safety, after being repeatedly instructed to do so by the Israeli authorities themselves.”
It came as Israel said an American activist killed in the West Bank last week was probably shot “indirectly and unintentionally” by its soldiers firing upon participants in a demonstration against settlements that turned violent. Israel expressed its “deepest regret” for the death of Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, a 26-year-old activist from Seattle who also held Turkish citizenship, and said a criminal investigation has been launched.
The acknowledgement drew a strong rebuke from US secretary of state Antony Blinken, who condemned it as “unprovoked and unjustified” when asked about the Israeli inquiry at a news conference in London. “No-one should be shot while attending a protest,” he said.
Later, Israel released video footage of a Gaza tunnel where it says six hostages were recently killed by Hamas. The video shows a low, narrow passageway deep underground that had no bathroom and poor ventilation.
The discovery of the hostages’ bodies last month sparked a mass outpouring of anger in Israel and the release of the new video could add to the pressure on Benjamin Netanyahu to reach a ceasefire deal with Hamas to bring the remaining hostages home.
Israeli military spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said the footage of the Gaza tunnel had been shown to the hostages’ families, and that it “was very hard for them to see how their loved ones survived in those conditions”.
International law allows for strikes on military targets in areas where civilians are present, provided the force used is proportionate to the military objective — something that is often disputed and would need to be settled in a court, which almost never happens.
The war has caused vast destruction and displaced around 90% of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million, often multiple times.
Gaza’s health ministry says over 41,000 Palestinians have been killed since the war began. It does not distinguish between civilians and militants in its count, but says women and children make up just over half of the dead. Israel says it has killed more than 17,000 militants in the war.
Hamas-led fighters killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, in its October 7 attack. They abducted another 250 and are still holding around 100 hostages after releasing most of the rest in exchange for Palestinians imprisoned by Israel during a weeklong cease-fire last November. Around a third of the remaining hostages are believed to be dead.
Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report
