By Nidal al-Mughrabi and Mohammad Salem
CAIRO/GAZA (Reuters) – The Israeli military killed at least 39 Palestinians in strikes across the Gaza Strip overnight, medics said on Thursday, including at least 20 in an attack that set ablaze tents sheltering displaced families in a crowded camp.
Residents carried a body wrapped in carpets out of the charred wreckage of the makeshift shelters in Mawasi, near the beach west of Khan Younis in southern Gaza, where tens of thousands of people have sheltered for months. Israel calls the area a humanitarian zone and has long told people to go there for their safety.
Mourners said the latest attacks demonstrated that a new declaration from international human rights group Amnesty International that Israel was guilty of genocide in Gaza – strongly rejected by Israel – had come too late.
Gaza medics said the 20 confirmed dead in the Israeli strike there included women and children. Israel said the strike targeted senior Hamas operatives, whom it did not identify.
The strike set several large tents ablaze, and the fire was worsened by the explosion of cooking gas canisters and burning furniture of the displaced people. On Thursday the area was strewn with charred clothing, mattresses and other belongings among the twisted frames of burnt-out shelters.
“We don’t see anyone from the whole world standing by us or helping us in this situation. Let them stop this crazy war that’s against us. Let them stop the war,” said Abu Kamal Al-Assar, a witness at the site.
The attack came on the day Amnesty International released its report saying Israel’s actions in Gaza met the definition of the crime of genocide. Israel strongly rejected that accusation, denouncing Amnesty as a “deplorable and fanatical organisation”.
At a funeral in Khan Younis, where relatives wept over the white-shrouded bodies of people killed the day before, resident Abu Anas Mustafa called the Amnesty report “a victory for Palestinian diplomacy”, although he said it “came late”.
“It is the 430th day of the war today, and Israel has been carrying out massacres and a genocide from the first ten days of the war,” he said.
Other Israeli strikes reported on Thursday hit Gaza City, where medics said an attack destroyed a house where an extended family had taken shelter and damaged two nearby homes, killed at least three people.
The Israeli army says militants frequently use residential buildings, schools, and hospitals for operational cover. Hamas denies this, accusing Israeli forces of indiscriminate attacks and ignoring the plight of civilians in harm’s way.
In Rafah, near the borders with Egypt, an Israeli strike killed three Palestinians on Thursday, medics said. Three others were killed in a separate air strike in Shejaia, in eastern Gaza City, they added.
Israel launched its assault on Gaza after Hamas-led fighters attacked Israeli communities on Oct. 7, 2023, killing 1,200 people and capturing more than 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
Since then, it has laid much of the Gaza Strip to waste, forcing nearly the entire 2.3 million population from their homes. Authorities in the Hamas-run territory say more than 44,500 Gazans have been killed, with thousands of others feared dead under the rubble.
(Reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi in Cairo, and Mohammad Salem and Hussam al-Masri in Gaza; Writing by Nidal al-Mughrabi; Editing by Peter Graff)
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