KHAN YUNIS: Palestinians in the southern Gaza Strip worked to clear bent metal sheets and charred personal belongings from tents incinerated by an Israeli air strike on a displacement camp.
Gaza’s Civil Defence agency said that the strike on the tents in the in Al-Mawasi area — designated a humanitarian zone by the Israeli army — killed 21 and injured 40, “most of them children, women and the elderly”.
Agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal said that at least five children were among the dead, most of whose bodies were left completely burnt by fires caused by the bombing.
“We heard a huge explosion, so we rushed to the place. I saw fire and smoke in the area of the displaced people’s tents, there was chaos everywhere,” Mahmud Shurrab, 39, who lives in his home in Al-Mawasi, told AFP.
“The bodies were burned, limbs were everywhere, and there was a huge fire in dozens of tents,” said Shurrab, who lost four family members in the strike.
AFP could not independently verify Shurrab’s allegations, but saw the large fire caused by the bombings Wednesday night.
On Thursday, an AFP journalist saw a large crater several metres deep in the sandy ground caused by the bomb’s impact, as well as piles of bent metal sheets that had been used for makeshift shelters.
Men carried a body away from the rubble wrapped in blankets used as a shroud.
The Israeli army told AFP that the strike targeted “senior Hamas terrorists who were involved in terrorist activities” in Al-Mawasi.
