At least 86 Palestinians killed, hundreds injured in Israeli raids on southern, central Gaza including in designated safe zone

Israeli aerial raids killed at least 71 Palestinians and wounded hundreds on Saturday morning in an attack on an area sheltering displaced people in Mawasi, west of Khan Younis in southern Gaza Strip — an area designated as a “safe humanitarian zone” by the Occupation military.

While the Israeli military claimed the raid targeted two senior commanders in the Qassam Brigades in “an open area,” Hamas denied the veracity of the claim, noting that the area which was bombed currently shelters around 80,000 civilians displaced during the ongoing aggression on the coastal enclave. 

Civilians sheltering in Mawasi who witnessed the airstrike spoke to Mada Masr. “I was selling pastries when suddenly a belt of fire engulfed the whole area,” said Mohamed Shaheen, one of the witnesses to the massacre in Mawasi. He added that the bombing of the displaced people’s tents continued for several minutes, resulting in dozens of deaths and injuries, including members of the Civil Defense who had arrived immediately to retrieve the bodies of the dead and rescue the injured.

Another displaced person, Samir Abdel Raouf said that at least four explosions that shook Mawasi were heard around noon. News reports on Saturday afternoon said that at least five separate missiles hit the area in quick succession. 

Shahin explained to Mada Masr that a number of his family members were killed or wounded while they were inside their tents that were bombed by the Occupation aircraft today. He denounced the bombing of areas that the Occupation designated as “safe areas.” “We tried to treat the injured more than once, and every time there was another bombing,” he added.

Othman al-Astal, who lives in a tent near the site of the bombing, told Mada Masr that he was shocked by the bombing of Mawasi, where displaced families moved for comparative safety to live in tents. Astal was displaced from his home elsewhere in the strip by Occupation bombings and ground incursions. “What has a child done to see his father or brother under the collapsed remains of a tent?” he asked.

Waad Abu Zahir, who was also displaced to Mawasi, told Mada Masr that Occupation reconnaissance and warplanes flew frequently above the crowded tens in the past few days, causing fear of a looming attack among the displaced including herself.

The latest statement from the Palestinian Health Ministry put the death toll of the Mawasi massacre at over 71 people, with at least 289 injured, including serious injuries that medical teams are still dealing with.

The Gaza Civil Defense Directorate reported that the deputy director of the directorate's Fire and Rescue Department, Colonel Mohamed Moussa Hamad,  was killed and eight other civil defense team members were injured —the condition of three of whom was described as serious. They were targeted while they were trying to rescue wounded people from a building in the center of Khan Younis that was bombed.

“Hamad worked in civil defense all his life — for 14 years. He would dive into these impossible spaces to exhume the bodies of the martyrs. He risked his life for the martyrs and the injured. He was targeted and injured while on duty once, twice, three times,” members of Hamad’s family told Mada Masr while surrounding his body.

The Occupation military radio claimed the attacks on Mawasi were an attempted assassination of Qassam Brigades commander-in-chief Mohamed Deif as well as the Khan Younis Brigade commander Rafi Salameh.

Hamas denied in a statement that the commanders of its military wings were targeted, dismissing the Israeli allegations as false. The statement added that this was not the first time that the Occupation has falsely claimed to have targeted Palestinian leaders, and that the claim was a ruse to cover up the scale of the massacre. Mawasi is a crowded area, and the attack is yet another example of the Israeli military targeting civilians, the statement said. 

Thousands of residents of Gaza have relocated to Mawasi in recent months following Israel’s invasion of Rafah in Gaza’s south and its occupation of the border between Gaza and Egypt. 

For its part, the Palestinian presidency said that the Mawasi massacre is a continuation of the Occupation’s genocidal war, holding the United States administration responsible for the continuation of the massacres, according to the Palestinian National Authority spokesperson Nabil Abu Rudeineh. 

Hamas leading member Sami Abu Zuhri told Reuters that the Occupation's escalation is a message showing its disregard for reaching a ceasefire agreement, stressing that all those killed in the massacre were civilians.

The Occupation forces also conducted another airstrike on civilians in a prayer area in the center of the Shati refugee camp, west of Gaza City, shortly before noon on Saturday, killing 15 citizens, Al-Aqsa Radio reported via Telegram. The bombing occurred while the victims were praying, the outlet added.

Israel’s military issued evacuation orders in multiple areas in Gaza City last week, amid ongoing ground operations in which it clashed with resistance forces in the Shujaiya neighborhood.

The Health Ministry in Gaza said the past 24 hours witnessed four massacres aside from Mawasi by the Occupation that killed 61 people and injured about 129 others. In total, at least 38,443 Palestinians were killed and 88,481 have been injured since October 7.