An Israeli strike on a Palestinian tent camp kills at least 19

Palestinians look at the destruction after an Israeli airstrike on a crowded tent camp housing Palestinians displaced by the war in Muwasi, Gaza Strip, Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2024. An Israeli strike killed at least 40 people and wounded 60 others early Tuesday, Palestinian officials said. Israel said it targeted "significant" Hamas militants, allegations denied by the militant group.

(AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — An Israeli strike hit a crowded Palestinian tent camp early Tuesday in Gaza, killing at least 19 people and wounding 60, Palestinian officials said. Israel said it targeted senior Hamas militants with precise munitions.

The strike occurred in Muwasi, a sprawl of camps along the coast that Israel designated as a humanitarian zone for hundreds of thousands of displaced civilians to seek shelter from the nearly year-old Israel-Hamas war.

Associated Press video showed three large craters. First responders dug with garden tools and bare hands, using mobile phone flashlights until the sun came up. They pulled body parts from the sand, including what appeared to be a human leg.

“We were told to go to Muwasi, to the safe area ... Look around you and see this safe place," said Iyad Hamed Madi, who had been sheltering there.

“This is for my son,” he said, holding up a bag of diapers. “He's 4 months old. Is he a fighter? There's no humanity.”

Gaza’s Health Ministry said the death toll may rise as more bodies are recovered. The Civil Defense agency, composed of first responders who operate under the Hamas-run government, earlier said 40 were killed. The Israeli military disputed that toll.

The ministry is also part of the Hamas-run government. Its figures are widely seen as reliable.

The Hamas government’s media office said in a statement that the toll discrepancies arose from different methods of counting the dead, saying the Health Ministry counts only bodies taken to hospitals while the Civil Defense also counts bodies that have not yet been retrieved.

An AP cameraman at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis saw 10 bodies in the morgue, including two children and three women. It was one of three medical centers that received casualties, according to the Civil Defense.

“We were sleeping, and suddenly it was like a tornado," Samar Moamer told the AP at the hospital, where she was being treated for wounds from the strike. She said one of her daughters was killed and the other was pulled alive from the rubble.

The Israeli military said it struck Hamas militants in a command center embedded in the area. It identified three of the militants, calling them senior operatives who were directly involved in the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas that triggered the war and other recent attacks.

Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, an Israeli military spokesperson, said in a post on the social media platform X that the initial casualty reports did “not line up with the information available to the (Israeli army), the precise weapons used and the accuracy of the strike.”

Hamas in a statement denied that any militants were in the area and called the Israeli allegations a “blatant lie.” Neither Israel nor Hamas provided evidence to support their claims.

Israel says it tries to avoid harming civilians and blames Hamas for their deaths because the militants often operate in residential areas and are known to position tunnels, rocket launchers and other infrastructure near homes, schools and mosques.

In July, Israel carried out a strike in the humanitarian zone that killed at least 90 Palestinians. The military said it targeted and killed Mohammed Deif, the shadowy leader of Hamas' military wing, but Hamas says Deif is still alive.

International law allows for strikes on military targets in areas where civilians are present, provided the force used is proportionate to the military objective — something that is often disputed and would need to be settled in a court, which almost never happens.

The war has caused vast destruction and displaced around 90% of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million, often multiple times. Israeli evacuation orders, which now cover around 90% of the territory, have pushed hundreds of thousands of people into Muwasi, where aid groups have struggled to provide even basic services.

Gaza’s Health Ministry says over 41,000 Palestinians have been killed since the war began. The ministry does not distinguish between civilians and militants in its count, but says women and children make up just over half of the dead. Israel says it has killed more than 17,000 militants in the war.

Hamas-led fighters killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, in the Oct. 7 attack. They abducted another 250 people and are still holding around 100 hostage after releasing most of the rest in exchange for Palestinians imprisoned by Israel during a weeklong cease-fire last November. Around a third of the remaining hostages are believed to be dead.

The Israeli military on Tuesday released footage of a Gaza tunnel where it said six hostages were recently killed by Hamas. The video shows a low, narrow passageway with no bathroom and poor ventilation.

The discovery of the hostages’ bodies last month has sparked a mass outpouring of anger in Israel, and the new video could add to the pressure on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to reach a cease-fire deal with Hamas to bring the remaining hostages home.

The United States and mediators Egypt and Qatar have spent much of this year trying to broker an agreement for a cease-fire and the release of the hostages, but the talks have repeatedly bogged down as Israel and Hamas have accused each other of making new and unacceptable demands.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant told reporters Monday that conditions are ripe for at least a six-week pause in the fighting that would include the release of many of the hostages still held in Gaza. However, he would not commit to a permanent end to the fighting — a central Hamas demand.

The war has plunged Gaza into a severe humanitarian crisis, and aid groups have struggled to operate because of fighting, Israeli restrictions and the breakdown of law and order.

In other developments Tuesday, the Israeli military said an American activist killed in the West Bank last week was likely shot “indirectly and unintentionally” by its soldiers, drawing a strong rebuke from U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and her family.

Israel said a criminal investigation has been launched into the killing of Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, a 26-year-old activist from Seattle who was taking part in a demonstration against settlements in the Palestinian territory. Doctors who treated Eygi, who also held Turkish citizenship, said she was shot in the head.

Blinken condemned the “unprovoked and unjustified” fatal shooting when asked about the Israeli inquiry at a news conference in London, and said the U.S. would make clear to its ally that such actions are “not acceptable.”