A Palestinian woman carries an injured child to the Nasser hospital in Khan Yunis on July 13, 2024. (Photo by Eyad Baba / AFP)
Gaza Strip, Palestinian Territories: The health ministry in Gaza said an Israeli strike Saturday on a displacement camp in the south of the Palestinian territory killed at least 71 people.
It is the latest mass-casualty incident in the Al-Mawasi area, where many Palestinians had fled, and came as international mediators pushed on with efforts to halt the war between Israel and Hamas.
There has been widespread global outrage over the war's civilian toll.
A statement from the Gaza health ministry said there were more than "71 martyrs" and 289 people wounded in what it called a "brutal massacre by the occupation", at Al-Mawasi camp.
AFP could not independently confirm the toll.
Israel's military said it was "looking into" the incident.
"What did we do?" a woman screamed in the street, in images captured by AFPTV. "What did we do? We were just sitting near the beach."
Sirens wailed and smoke rose in the distance as men used blankets to collect victims. Some were clearly beyond help and lay dead on the road.
Israel in May had told Palestinians in the Rafah area to move to a designated humanitarian area in Al-Mawasi on the coast as troops moved in to the southern city of Rafah near the Egyptian border.
Later that month a fire killed 45 people at a tent city in the area.
In another incident around the same time, a Gaza civil defence official said an Israeli strike killed 21 people at a displacement camp west of Rafah.
In late June, the International Committee of the Red Cross said 22 people were killed by shelling that damaged its Gaza office, which is surrounded by hundreds of displaced people who sought shelter there.
