An explosion in a single day in a densely populated refugee camp within the central Gaza Strip destroyed a number of buildings and appeared to have killed and wounded many individuals, pictures and movies from the scene on Sunday confirmed.
The Gazan Well being Ministry stated an Israeli airstrike had hit the Al Maghazi camp, killing at the least 47 individuals and wounding dozens of others. It warned that the toll was anticipated to rise, saying that many our bodies remained buried underneath the rubble.
Casualties have been taken to the close by Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, the place a photographer for The New York Occasions noticed the injured crowding the hallways and the lifeless being ready for burial.
A spokesperson for the Israeli navy stated it was trying into experiences of the strike.
Israel hit a neighborhood with an identical refugee camp final week in strikes that Hamas, the armed group that controls Gaza, and native docs stated had killed or wounded lots of of individuals. The toll of these strikes — which Israel stated had killed a Hamas chief and different operatives and hit a community of Hamas tunnels it claimed was under the residential buildings — provoked worldwide outrage.
Al Maghazi, which was created in 1949, is certainly one of eight camps housing Palestinians who fled or have been expelled in the course of the wars that surrounded Israel’s creation, together with their descendants. The camps have usually been constructed up over time and was tightly packed neighborhoods.
Al Maghazi is among the smaller camps, in line with UNRWA, the U.N. company that aids Palestinians and runs the camps. The company stated Al Maghazi was identified for its “slim alleys and a excessive inhabitants density,” with 33,255 individuals dwelling in 0.6 sq. kilometers, or 0.2 sq. miles.
On Sunday, Mohammed al-Aloul, a photographer for Anadolu Company, a Turkish state-run information service, stated he was out working when information and movies from Al Maghazi, his neighborhood, started flooding his telephone.
Whereas scrolling by way of them, his greatest worry got here true: 4 of his 5 kids — Qais, Ahmad, Rahaf, and Kenaan — have been among the many lifeless our bodies being pulled from underneath the rubble.
A number of hours later, Mr. al-Aloul was main their funeral prayer close to the doorway of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, nonetheless carrying his blue press vest as he confronted the kids’s small shrouded our bodies. Behind him, greater than a dozen males prayed, a few of whom had additionally misplaced kids.
Contained in the hospital have been his solely surviving members of the family: His youngest, 1-year-old Adam, and his spouse, Amnah, who was in essential situation. Mr. al-Aloul stated he additionally misplaced a number of different family within the strike.
Amnah sustained severe burns to the face, damaged bones and shrapnel wounds. When a photographer for The New York Occasions visited her on the hospital, she was sharing a single mattress along with her sister-in-law, who was additionally in severe situation.
The hospital, like most in Gaza, was overcrowded, leaving lots of the wounded to be handled in corridors. Mr. al-Aloul’s son Adam was amongst them, his face coated in cuts from shrapnel.