The Israeli military claimed to have taken precautions to reduce the possibility of killing civilians when its aircraft bombed a Hamas fighters’ operations center in Khan Younis.
According to locals, three strikes caused holes seven meters deep to house displaced people in tents in the al-Mawasi humanitarian zone, west of Khan Younis.
The director of operations for Hamas’s Civil Defense department broke the news, saying, “Over sixty people were hurt, forty people died, and many more are still under the rubble.”
Just after midnight, massive explosions shook the al-Mawasi region, according to witnesses who spoke to the news.
Mr. Mr.Khaled Mahmoud, who lives near the strike site, gives his time to charity. He said that even though he and other volunteers raced to help, the scope of the disaster shocked them.
“The strikes created three craters seven metres deep and buried more than 20 tents,” Mr Mahmoud claimed.
Unconfirmed footage purports to show bystanders reaching into the sand with their hands to save Palestinians trapped in a deep hole created by the bombing.
A spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) announced in a statement that the force had struck “significant Hamas terrorists who were operating within a command and control center embedded inside the Humanitarian Area in Khan Yunis.”
