Palestinian resistance group Hamas denied on Tuesday that its fighters were present at the scene of a strike on a humanitarian zone in Gaza that the Israeli military said had targeted one of the group’s command centres.
“The occupation’s allegations of the presence of resistance fighters are a blatant lie,” the group said in a statement on Telegram.
Gaza’s civil defence agency said early Tuesday that a strike on the Al Mawasi humanitarian zone in the Palestinian territory’s main southern city of Khan Younis killed 40 people and wounded 60 others, with the Israeli army saying it had hit a Hamas command centre in the area.
Civil defence official Mohammed Al Mughair told AFP: “Our crews are still working to recover 15 missing people as a result of targeting the tents of the displaced in Mawasi, Khan Younis.”
Civil defence sources said separately that the strike had left behind large craters.
“Entire families disappeared in the Mawasi Khan Younis massacre, under the sand, in deep holes,” said civil defence spokesman Mahmoud Basal.
The Israeli military claimed in a statement early Tuesday that its aircraft had “struck significant Hamas terrorists who were operating within a command and control center embedded inside the Humanitarian Area in Khan Younis”.
“The terrorist organisations in the Gaza Strip continue to systematically abuse civilian and humanitarian infrastructure, including the designated Humanitarian Area, to carry out terrorist activity against the State of Israel and IDF troops,” it added –AFP
