Almost 100 died in Israeli attack in Khan Younis – the worst attack in Gaza in weeks

On Saturday evening, it was also reported that the number of injured had increased to at least 300 people.

The attack, among the deadliest in the Gaza Strip in weeks, hit al-Mawasi, a settlement just west of the city of Khan Younis.

The attack hit a tent camp for internally displaced persons there, which is located in an area previously defined as a “safe zone” by Israeli forces.

Mutilations and corpses

Displaced Palestinians who had sought refuge in the area say that the attack was so powerful that the tents they lived in were torn to pieces. Many also tell of mutilations and body parts lying strewn on the ground.

– I mightn’t see where I was or understand what was happening, says Sheikh Youssef, a Palestinian from Gaza City who has sought refuge in the al-Mawasi area.

– I left the tent and looked around, and all the tents around had been torn to pieces. There were body parts and corpses everywhere, both of elderly women and small children, he tells Reuters.

Photos and videos taken in the followingmath of the attack show a huge bomb crater, charred tents and burnt out cars. The dead were carried away from the scene on stretchers, on the hoods of cars and in carts pulled by donkeys, according to the AP news agency.

Hamas summit was the target

According to the Israeli military (IDF), the target of the attack was the leader of Hamas’s military wing, Mohammed Deif.

For a while there was speculation in the Israeli media that Deif was among the dead. Several Israeli newspapers wrote, among other things, that the IDF was working to get it confirmed. Later in the evening, however, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said it was not certain that Deif was killed in the attack.

– Israel attacked Gaza in an attempt to eliminate Mohammed Deif and his deputy Rafa Salama. It is not certain that the two were eliminated, said the Prime Minister at a press conference on Saturday evening.

A senior Hamas official earlier in the day rejected Israel’s claims that Deif was the target of the attack and said that all those killed were civilians. He referred to Israel’s claims as “nonsense”.

– It is not the first time that Israel claims to have targeted Palestinian leaders, only to be disproved later, said the statement from Hamas.

Israel believes that Deif is one of the main architects behind the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, which killed an estimated 1,170 people. Deif has rarely been seen in public and, according to Reuters, he has survived seven Israeli assassination attempts, the latest in 2021. He has topped Israel’s most wanted list for decades.

“Safe Zone”

Al-Mawasi near Khan Younis is designated a “safe zone” by Israel, and the IDF has repeatedly urged Palestinians to travel there following issuing evacuation orders for other areas of the Gaza Strip.

Video footage from Reuters shows ambulances driving at full speed towards the area following the attack in clouds of smoke and dust. Displaced people, including women and children, are fleeing in panic, some of them with the few possessions they own in their arms.

The IDF, for its part, has published an aerial photograph of the site, which Reuters has not been able to verify. The army claims Hamas fighters were hiding among civilians there.

– The attack was aimed at an open area surrounded by trees, several buildings and sheds, their statement says.

An IDF spokesperson further claims that the area was not a tent camp, but one of Hamas’ operational areas, and that several Hamas fighters were there to protect Deif. This has not been confirmed by independent sources.

Overcrowded hospital

The Nasser hospital says that they have received many wounded following the attack. Hospital staff say they have too few beds to accommodate more patients and that they do not have enough medical equipment.

– The hospital is full of patients, it is full of wounded, we cannot find more beds for people, says the hospital’s director Atef al-Hout.

According to him, Nasser Hospital is the only hospital still operating in southern Gaza. After Saturday’s attack, several children have been sent there, according to AP.

The news agency describes how an infant with a pink shirt and face covered in sand cries as she receives first aid. At the other end of the hospital bed she is lying on, a small boy lies completely motionless. One of his shoes is missing. At the same time, more patients are treated on the floor, as there are no more hospital beds to fill up.

Stink of blood

According to spokesperson Louise Wateridge of the United Nations Organization for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), who is in the hospital, there is an “overwhelming stench of blood” in the air. Hospital staff have said there is no more cleaning agent in the building.

Waterridge says the explosion in al-Mawasi threw a 2-year-old child into the air and that the child’s mother is still missing. She says that another boy had his feet blown off, while an 8-year-old boy was killed.

– They told me to go there (al-Mawasi) to be safe, his grieving mother tells AP.

It is unclear how the attack might affect the ceasefire talks currently underway between Israel and Hamas in Doha and Cairo. However, Saturday’s events have caused unrest to spread among Israelis who want a deal, especially among the family members of the Israeli hostages in Gaza.

– We support holding Hamas accountable, but not at the expense of our loved ones’ lives and our chance to get them home, Einav Zangauker, mother of one of the hostages, told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.

She is among thousands of Israelis who have marched from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem for four days demanding that Netanyahu get a hostage deal with Hamas.

– My whole family is gone

The attack in Khan Younis comes following more than nine months of war in the Gaza Strip, triggered by the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7 last year.

So far, Israeli attacks have cost more than 38,000 Palestinians their lives, according to figures from the Palestinian health authorities, but it is believed that these are large dark figures. The UN considers the figures from the Palestinian health authorities to be credible.

In a separate attack on a mosque in the Nasser refugee camp outside Gaza City on Saturday, another 17 people were killed, according to Gaza’s health ministry.

According to eyewitnesses, Saturday’s attack once morest Khan Younis came as a big shock to the population there, as the situation in the city has been calmer in recent days. Some of the wounded who have been evacuated are also rescue workers, they say.

– They are all gone, my whole family is gone. Where are my brothers? They are all gone. There is no one left, a tearful woman, who did not want to give her name, told Reuters.

The town of Khan Younis has already been bombed to pieces in the ravages of war and now consists mostly of ruins and collapsed buildings.