The Hamas Health Ministry for Gaza announced today that the bodies of 19 people killed in an overnight Israeli strike in al-Mawashi, in an area Israel presents as a “humanitarian zone”, were identified in various hospitals in the surrounding areas.

The civil protection service of the Gaza Strip had announced earlier 40 dead from the blow which, according to Israel, targeted high-ranking officials of the armed wing of the Palestinian Islamist movement.

In the early hours today in the southern part of the Gaza Strip “the (Israeli) occupation army (committed) a horrific massacre by shelling tents for displaced persons in the area of ​​al-Mawashi in Khan Younis, where 19 dead (whose identity is known) reached hospitals and more than 60 were injured, some seriously,” in the strike that hit tents of displaced people, Gaza’s health ministry said.

The ministry hinted that the toll could rise, saying, without elaborating, that “an undetermined number of victims remain under the rubble, under the sand and on the streets, who have not yet reached hospitals.”

Shortly after 1:30 a.m. (local time and Greek time) the Israeli military announced that it had carried out a “precision strike” against “Hamas operatives” in al-Mawashi, a 46 square kilometer coastal sector that Israel has designated a “humanitarian zone”. and where the Palestinians of the Gaza Strip are supposed to gather who were called to evacuate the sectors that were the target of the Israeli bombardments.

A Gaza civil protection official, Mohammed al-Mughair, later told AFP that “40 martyrs and 60 wounded were rounded up and taken” to nearby hospitals after the strike and that fifteen people were missing.

Assuring that it had taken “many measures to limit the risk of harm to civilians”, the Israeli military, which accuses Hamas fighters of using “the civilian infrastructure of the humanitarian zone” and “systematically turning Gazan civilians into human shields”, had disputed that number, stressing that (the number) was not “consistent with the information (in his possession at the time of the strike), the type of specific munitions used, and the accuracy with which the strike was conducted.”

When asked by AFP about the reason for the discrepancy between the ministry’s assessment and his service, Mahmoud Basal, a spokesman for Gaza’s civil protection, replied: “We cannot doubt the ministry’s information.” “If they say 19, then there are 19 dead. They are the ones responsible” for that number, he added.