'No safe place': Gazans race to collect wounded after Israeli strike

AL MAWASI, Palestinian Territories — Israel had declared Al Mawasi a safe zone as it pushed into Rafah near the Egyptian border, but on Saturday Palestinians raced to collect the dozens of casualties from the army's latest strike.

Sirens wailed and women screamed as children were pulled out of the wreckage and rushed to nearby hospitals following the strike on a displacement camp.

"What did we do? What did we do? We were only sitting near the beach," one woman from the coastal town cried. 

The territory's health ministry said more than 71 people were killed and 289 people wounded in what it called a "massacre" at Al Mawasi camp.

AFP could not independently confirm the toll.

The Israeli military claimed the attack targeted Hamas military strategist Mohammed Deif and Rafa Salama, a brigade commander, describing the pair as two of the masterminds of the October 7 surprise attack, which set off the war in Gaza.

The camp, near the city of Khan Yunis, was designated a humanitarian area after Israel in May ordered civilians to evacuate other parts of the Gaza Strip. 

Hundreds of thousands of displaced people were sheltering there, according to UK-based Medical Aid for Palestinians, which operates health sites in the area.

“We have been warning for months that there is no safe place for anyone in Gaza amid Israel’s military bombardment,” the charity said in a statement.

Black smoke billowed behind a wide, ash-strewn street in Al Mawasi where bodies lay in pools of blood, some covered by sheets.

Men struggling to carry the wounded wove through those beyond help to get to ambulances waiting with doors open. Others were piled onto donkey-pulled carts. 

Despite the Nasser Hospital reporting it was at full-capacity, ambulances kept arriving with wounded on orange stretchers, including a man with a towel tied to his leg as a makeshift tourniquet. 

A woman outside the hospital could be head pleading: “Please enough, enough for God sake”.

The Israeli military said Saturday’s offensive “struck an open area” that “was not a tent complex but an operational compound”.

“According to our information, only Hamas terrorists were present and there were no civilians,” it said.

Hamas called the claim that Deif had been targeted “false allegations” intended “to cover up the magnitude of the horrific massacre”.

Gaza’s civil defence agency said heavy shelling was preventing its teams from reaching the “many bodies” scattered in the streets.

Mahmud Abu Akar described missiles raining down seemingly endlessly.

“Every time people tried to get close to rescue others, they would strike,” he said. 

“There was no warning at all, it happened all of a sudden.”

There have been previous reports of the camp coming under fire, including in June when the International Committee of the Red Cross said 22 people were killed by shelling that damaged its office.

Israel’s offensive has killed at least 38,443 people in Gaza, according to data from Gaza’s health ministry.