Israeli strike on Gaza tent camp kills at least 40 people
An Israeli strike on a crowded tent camp housing Palestinians displaced by the war in Gaza killed at least 40 people and wounded 60 others early Tuesday, Palestinian officials said. Israel said it targeted “significant” Hamas militants and disputed the death toll.
It was among the deadliest strikes yet in Muwasi, a sprawl of crowded tent camps along the Gaza coast that Israel designated as a humanitarian zone for hundreds of thousands of civilians to seek shelter from the Israel-Hamas war, AP reported.
Gaza’s Civil Defense said its first responders recovered 40 bodies from the strike and were still looking for people. It said entire families were killed in their tents.
The war has caused vast destruction and displaced around 90% of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million, often multiple times. Israeli evacuation orders, which now cover around 90% of the territory, have pushed hundreds of thousands of people into Muwasi, a sprawling line of squalid tent camps along the coast.
Aid groups have struggled to provide even basic services in Muwasi, and Israel has occasionally struck targets there despite designating it as a humanitarian zone.
Gaza’s Health Ministry says over 40,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since the war began. It does not differentiate between fighters and civilians in its count.