UNITED NATIONS - Fresh Israeli airstrikes struck southern and central areas of Gaza on Monday as UN humanitarians and partners continued to treat the victims of a deadly strike on Al Mawasi in southwest Gaza on Saturday that reportedly left at least 90 dead and around 300 injured, according to the United Nations.
In an update from Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis where victims have been admitted, veteran UN aid official Scott Anderson reported witnessing “some of the most horrific” scenes he had experienced in his nine months in Gaza.
“With not enough beds, hygiene equipment, sheeting or scrubs, many patients were treated on the ground without disinfectants, ventilation systems were switched off due to a lack of electricity and fuel, and the air was filled with the smell of blood,” said Anderson, Deputy Humanitarian Coordinator and Director of the UN agency for Palestine refugees (UNRWA) in Gaza.
The overwhelmed facility received more than 100 severe cases in one day, the UNRWA official continued. “I saw toddlers who are double amputees, children paralyzed and unable to receive treatment and others separated from their parents,” Anderson said, adding that parents had moved into the “so-called humanitarian zone” of Al Mawasi, in the hope that their children would be safe there.
In a statement, the Israeli military claimed that it had been targeting a Hamas military commander, Mohammed Dief, at Al Mawasi, which lies west of Khan Younis city, by the coast. The sand and seafront zone is now home to hundreds of thousands of people, including many forcibly uprooted from Rafah in southernmost Gaza in early May ahead of an incursion by Israeli forces.
According to media reports, Hamas rejected the claim that Deif was in the area, saying “these false claims are merely a cover-up for the scale of the horrific massacre.” The strike took place in an area Israel’s military had designated as safe for hundreds of thousands of Palestinians. Monday’s renewed hostilities in Rafah and central Gaza followed media reports of another strike on an UNRWA school-turned-shelter on Sunday in Nuseirat refugee camp. At least 17 people are believed to have died in the attack at the school, according to the local authorities.
Two other UNRWA schools were hit last week, with 190 of the UN agency’s facilities struck since the war erupted.
Last Wednesday, the UN aid coordination office, OCHA, led an inter-agency mission to two informal shelter sites at Al Bureij and Al Maghazi refugee camps in Deir al Balah, central Gaza.
The health ministry in Gaza said on Monday at least 38,664 people have been killed in the war between Israel and Palestinian group.
The toll includes 80 new deaths in 24 hours, a ministry statement said, adding that 89,097 people have been wounded in the Gaza Strip since the war began when Hamas attacked Israel on October 7. The ministry also updated the toll from an Israeli air strike on a school in central Gaza on Sunday, saying it had increased from 15 dead to 22.
The Abu Oreiban school was run by the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, and housed “thousands of displaced people”, civil defence agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP on Sunday. It was the fifth Israeli strike on a school being used to shelter displaced Palestinians in eight days.
