Israeli forces shell Gaza after attack on al-Mawasi tent camp kills 25 people | News on the Israel-Palestine conflict

The International Committee of the Red Cross said “heavy-caliber projectiles” had hit just meters from its office in the designated security zone in the south of the country.

The Israeli military launched attacks across the Gaza Strip after an attack on a tent camp in al-Mawasi in the south killed at least 25 people, according to Palestinian officials.

The Gaza Strip’s Health Ministry said on Saturday that 101 Palestinians were killed and 169 injured in Israeli attacks in the last 24 hours. Many people were buried under the rubble and inaccessible to ambulances and civil defense teams.

This is the highest daily death toll recorded by the ministry in the enclave since June 8, when Israeli forces killed at least 274 Palestinians trying to free four Israeli prisoners in the Nuseirat refugee camp.

On Friday, two attacks were carried out in an Israeli raid near the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) base in al-Mawasi camp – which Israel has designated as a security zone – the Associated Press reported. According to Palestinian authorities, at least 25 people were killed and 50 others were injured in the attack.

Witnesses whose relatives were killed in one of the bombings told AP that Israeli forces fired a second volley, killing people who were coming out of their tents.

“We were in our tent when they hit the Red Cross tents with a ‘sound bomb’. At the first sound, my husband came out,” Mona Ashour, whose husband was killed in the attack, told AP outside Nasser Hospital in nearby Khan Younis.

“Then they struck with the second one, which was a little closer to the Red Cross entrance,” she said.

The ICRC condemned the attack on the camp and said the location of its humanitarian office, which was hit, was known to the warring parties. It reported that 22 people had died and 45 were injured.

The ICRC office in Gaza, surrounded by hundreds of displaced civilians living in tents, was damaged by close-range artillery fire.

Shooting in such dangerous proximity to humanitarian structures endangers the lives of civilians and humanitarian workers. https://t.co/SVrwaQ9cNV

— ICRC (@ICRC) 21 June 2024

“The fire, so dangerously close to humanitarian structures whose locations are known to the parties to the conflict and which are clearly marked with Red Cross emblems, endangers the lives of civilians and Red Cross workers,” it said in a statement.

“The attack damaged the structure of the ICRC office. It is surrounded by hundreds of displaced civilians living in tents, including many of our Palestinian colleagues.”

A survivor of the attack told Al Jazeera that the fire “consumed” them “from all directions”.

“We had just eaten and were about to sleep and rest when we suddenly heard the sound of loud explosions destroying our houses. We were alone and didn’t know what to do. We still can’t process what happened,” said the survivor.

Reporting from Deir el-Balah in central Gaza, Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azzoum noted that there had been an increase in Israeli attacks in the past 24 hours since the attack on al-Mawasi.

“Witnesses said Israeli tanks made a sudden and unexpected incursion into al-Mawasi and fired numerous artillery shells at the evacuation centers and makeshift tents,” he said on Saturday.

“The entire area of ​​al-Mawasi is an evacuation center. It is a very small strip of land where more than 100,000 Palestinians have found refuge. Field hospitals have been set up here and it is a center for humanitarian organizations,” he added.

The Israeli military claims there is “no indication” it was responsible for Friday’s attack on the camp, but said the incident was under investigation. The military had previously said its forces were conducting “precise, intelligence-based” operations in the Rafah area.

Abu Azzoum also reported that the Israeli military attacked a residential area in the Shati refugee camp in the western Gaza Strip, urging displaced Palestinians from the north of the territory to seek refuge there.

More than 37,500 people have been killed and 85,900 injured in Israel’s war on Gaza since October 7, according to the Health Ministry on Saturday. The death toll in Israel from the Hamas-led attacks now stands at 1,139, and dozens of people are still being held captive in Gaza.