The Israeli military bombed the supposed “humanitarian safe zone” in southern Gaza on Wednesday, killing dozens in the blast and subsequent huge blaze.
The strike on al-Mawasi killed at least 23 Palestinians, including at least four children and a pregnant woman. Israel targeted a densely populated tent camp housing forcibly displaced people, and the fire that broke out as a result of the strike destroyed all 21 tents in the area, according to the UN Human Rights Office.
At least 18 people sustained burn wounds as a result, according to Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, as people were burned alive. Israeli forces claimed that the blaze was caused by the presence of weapons in the area, but the UN Human Rights Office says that it was caused by a secondary blast after the strike hit gas cylinders for domestic use.
The UN noted that Tuesday’s attack is Israel’s seventh on a camp for displaced people within Gaza just in the last two weeks, amounting to one attack every other day, killing at least 34 Palestinians in total, including 10 children. Four of these attacks have come on the “safe zone” of al-Mawasi.
Despite Israel having created the designation, it has repeatedly attacked the “humanitarian safe zone” after having forced hundreds of thousands of Palestinian to flee there. In a particularly stark attack in September, Israeli forces killed at least 19 Palestinians in the “safe zone,” with the 2,000-pound bombs likely used in the attack leaving craters nine meters deep where tents once stood.
Euro-Med Monitor said that the attack deliberately targeted civilians. The group said that it has received reports of “children’s charred and dismembered remains being retrieved” as a result of the attack.
“The operation began with a request to evacuate part of the targeted area, during which an Israeli helicopter fired a missile at the displaced people as they were evacuating,” the human rights group said. “The raids were subsequently repeated across a 700-meter area, directly striking the displaced people’s tents and setting them ablaze.”
Those needing medical attention after the attack may struggle to find care. According to a leader of Gaza’s civil defense agency, per Al Jazeera, a shortage of fuel due to Israel’s humanitarian aid and supply blockade is making it so that the agency may have to halt all service in south Gaza — meaning that Palestinians there would be left without paramedics and firefighters. The director, Muhammad al-Mughair, said that 13 out of 22 fire and rescue vehicles in the region have already been forced to stop working.
Israeli forces also continued their attack on Kamal Adwan Hospital in north Gaza on Tuesday for the fifth day in a row, according to the hospital’s director, Hossam Abu Safiya. The siege is putting the lives of over 100 patients in the hospital, one of the only ones left partially functioning in north Gaza, at risk, he said.
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