At least 40 Palestinians have been killed and more than 65 others injured in Israeli airstrikes that targeted a tent encampment located in Al-Mawasi area of Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza strip on Tuesday, September 10.
The heavy aerial assault also created two massive, nine-meter deep craters, which has led many to allege that Israel used US-manufactured 2,000 pound bombs in the attack.
Although Al-Mawasi area was already designated as a “humanitarian safe zone” by the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF), it has been subjected to deadly attacks by Israeli warplanes more than once during the last several months. According to Anadolu News Agency, the Israeli military have committed 5 massacres in Al-Mawasi, killing at least 217 Palestinian people between May and September 2024.
The IOF used its usual cliché to cover up its latest appalling crime against civilians in Al-Mawasi’s encampment, claiming that its warplanes targeted a command center of the Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement Hamas. However, Hamas denied the presence of its fighters in the targeted area, accusing the IOF of continuously fabricating lies as a pretext for their “ugly crimes”. Hamas said in a statement: “The resistance has denied several times that any of its members exist within civilian gatherings or using these places for military purposes”.
The massacre in Al-Mawasi was “strongly condemned” by the United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Tuesday, according to his spokesperson Stephane Dujarric. “I can tell you that the Secretary-General (Guterres) is deeply alarmed by the continued loss of life in Gaza. He strongly condemns today’s Israeli air strike in an Israeli designated zone for displaced persons in Khan Younis,” Dujarric told the media.
Dujarric also slammed the IOF on Tuesday for holding a United Nations convoy carrying 12 of its national and international staff members at gunpoint, while they were on their way to support the polio vaccination campaign in the northern Gaza Strip on Monday, September 9. The United Nations’ spokesperson described the incident as“the latest example of the unacceptable dangers and impediment that humanitarian personnel in Gaza are experiencing.”
