The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said an Israeli strike on a displacement camp in the south of the Palestinian territory killed at least 71 people on Saturday, July 13. 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," a reference to Israel, at Al-Mawasi camp.
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 militants.
The Israeli military said it had "carried out a strike in an area where two senior Hamas terrorists and additional terrorists hid among civilians" based on "precise intelligence."
Footage from Agence France-Presse (AFP) showed sirens wailing and smoke rising 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 into the southern city of Rafah near the Egyptian border.
Later that month a fire killed 45 people at a tent city in the area. Israel's military said it had targeted and killed two senior Hamas militants in northwest Rafah in the strike which sparked the blaze, but added its munitions alone could not have caused the fire.
In another incident around the same time, a Gaza civil defense official said an Israeli strike killed 21 people at a displacement camp west of Rafah. Israel's army rejected the allegations, saying it "did not strike" the designated humanitarian area in Al-Mawasi.
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.
An Israeli military spokesperson said there was "no indication" of an Israeli strike in the Al-Mawasi humanitarian area at that time.
There has been widespread global outrage over the war's civilian toll. In Israel, demonstrators were again expected to rally later Saturday demanding new elections and a deal to free hostages still held by Hamas in Gaza.
Gathering by the tens of thousands at times, protesters have stepped up their actions against the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
UN chief Antonio Guterres appealed to donor governments on Friday to resume funding the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, warning there was no alternative to UNRWA as a conduit for aid to Gazans despite longstanding Israeli opposition to the agency. "Just when we thought it couldn't get any worse in Gaza – somehow, appallingly, civilians are being pushed into ever deeper circles of hell," he said.
UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini said later that the agency now had enough funds to operate through September.
Israel and Hamas have engaged in months of indirect talks via Qatari, US and Egyptian mediators to reach a still elusive truce and hostage release deal. Talks took place in Doha on Wednesday, while Israel said it was sending a delegation to Cairo on Thursday evening for further negotiations.
Netanyahu continues to insist that any deal must allow Israel to meet all its war aims – destroying Hamas as well as bringing home all the hostages.
US President Joe Biden has outlined what he called an Israeli plan for a six-week truce in which hostages held in Gaza would be freed in exchange for Palestinians in Israeli prisons. A second phase would see talks on a full end to the war.
Hamas has proposed an independent and non-partisan government for both post-war Gaza and the Israeli-occupied West Bank, said Hossam Badran, a member of the group's political bureau.
Badran's remarks came after Netanyahu – whose critics have accused him of prolonging the war – demanded that Israel retain control of the Philadelphi corridor, Gaza territory along the border with Egypt.