An Israeli airstrike on a crowded tent camp in a Gaza humanitarian zone Tuesday killed at least 19 people and injured 60 others, officials in the Palestinian enclave said.
Gaza’s Health Ministry said that it had confirmed that at least 19 people were killed in the strike and that the toll may rise as more bodies are recovered. The Civil Defense first responders had said earlier that at least 40 people were killed.
The Israeli military said it targeted “senior” Hamas militants and disputed the death toll.
Images from the site showed craters left by the strike reached meters deep, while videos geolocated by NBC News showed emergency responders sifting through the sand with bare hands and shovels to search for survivors using flashlights.
Entire families were wiped out as the strike hit an area full of displaced Palestinians from all over Gaza, said Mahmoud Basal, a spokesperson for the Civil Defense first responders.
“Great panic among the residents of the surrounding area after they were asleep and believed that they were safe,” he said, adding that the strike came without warning and destroyed at least 20 tents, leaving behind three large craters.
“A number of martyrs were buried in the ground, and the ambulance and civil defense crews are facing great difficulty in retrieving the martyrs amidst the lack of capabilities and the absence of a source of light,” Basal said.
Israel launched the strike before the break of dawn Tuesday.
The Israel Defense Forces said its aerial forces were targeting a number of senior Hamas militants who it said were operating a “command and control center” in a humanitarian area of Khan Younis in southern Gaza.
The militants who were targeted, it said, were directly involved in the Oct. 7 Hamas-led terrorist attacks. It named some of those it said were targeted and killed, one of whom it said was the head of Hamas’ Aerial Unit in Gaza.
It appeared to be among the deadliest strikes yet in Mawasi, which was designated a humanitarian zone for Gaza residents to evacuate to as the Israeli military launched its ground assault on the enclave.
The thin strip of land along Gaza's coast has become a site sprawling with tents and housing hundreds of thousands of Palestinians displaced from across Gaza.
The IDF said local officials’ death toll numbers “do not align with the information held by the IDF, the precise munitions used, and the accuracy of the strike."
NBC News has not independently verified the death toll.
Mostly children and women were killed in the Israeli strike, Hamas said in a statement, which also denied Israeli claims that its members were present in the area or were using it as a base for operations.
In a later statement, the Civil Defense said it had recovered a large number of dead and wounded, including amputation cases. “Our crews are still searching for missing persons among the tents of the displaced,” the statement added.
Around two dozen bodies were taken to Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, one of the three hospitals to receive the casualties, the hospital said, The Associated Press reported.
The Israeli military said it had taken “numerous steps” to mitigate civilian harm, like using aerial surveillance and precise munitions. It did not say whether it issued any warnings in advance of the strike.
The IDF did not immediately respond to a request for further comment.
The Israeli military's evacuation orders, which now cover more around 90% of the territory, have pushed many of the territory’s 2.3 million residents into crowded, makeshift camps like those in Mawasi.
And even though the area has been designated as a humanitarian zone, it has frequently been targeted, while aid groups have struggled to provide even the most basic services in the area.
More than 40,900 people have been killed in Gaza, according to the enclave's health officials, since Israel launched its offensive in the wake of the Hamas-led attacks in Israel on Oct. 7, which officials say killed 1,200 people and led to 250 more being taken hostage.
The war has plunged Gaza into a humanitarian crisis, and after 11 months of bombing it has also seen polio return from near-eradication. Water lines and sewage systems have been destroyed, and thousands of people have been packed into dense areas with no toilets.
Israel and Hamas agreed to three separate three-day pauses in fighting to vaccinate some of Gaza's 640,000 children against polio amid fears the diseases could spread beyond its borders.