Gaza civil defence says 40 dead in Israeli strike on humanitarian zone
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00:00Israel had declared al-Mawassi to be a humanitarian safe zone during the Gaza war.
00:05Nonetheless, a strike overnight left giant craters among the tents.
00:10Crews were searching on Tuesday morning to find people who were still missing.
00:14Witnesses said the Israeli strike completely destroyed
00:18dozens of shelters, killing entire families.
00:22They told us to come to al-Mawassi, so we came to al-Mawassi and settled.
00:27The area was bombed without prior warning.
00:29They didn't ask us to flee to a safer area or anything.
00:33As you can see, there are only tents around us, shelters.
00:37There's nothing here.
00:38Yet suddenly we saw the missiles falling on our heads.
00:43Tens of thousands of Palestinians have taken refuge in the al-Mawassi camp
00:48since the war began almost a year ago.
00:51According to the United Nations,
00:53about 1.9 million Gazans have been displaced by the hostilities,
00:58or about 85 percent of the population.
01:01In a statement, the Israeli Defense Forces said the military had attacked
01:06Hamas terrorists who were operating within a command and control center.
01:10The terrorist organizations in the Gaza Strip continue to systematically abuse
01:14civilian and humanitarian infrastructure, including the designated humanitarian area,
01:20to carry out terrorist activity against the State of Israel and IDF troops.
01:26Nonetheless, Hamas denied that it had any fighters present in the area.
01:31In July, Israel carried out a similar attack, killing 90 people.
01:36Israel claims to have also killed Hamas military chief Mohamed Daif in that strike.