- Fresh blitz comes after fatal weekend assault in the safe zone of Mawasi near Mediterranean coast
- Palestinian officials say at least 90 people were killed and many hundreds wounded
GAZA: Israel struck the southern and central Gaza Strip on Monday to put more pressure on Hamas, following a weekend strike targeting the militant group’s leadership, which killed scores of Palestinians who had sought shelter in a makeshift camp.
Two days after the Israeli strike turned a crowded swathe of Mawasi near the Mediterranean coast into a charred wasteland littered with burning cars and mangled bodies, displaced survivors said they had no idea where they should go next.
“Those moments as the ground shook underneath my feet and the dust and sand rose to the sky and I saw dismembered bodies – was like nothing I have seen in my life,” said Aya Mohammad, 30, a market seller in Mawasi, reached by mobile text message.
“Where to go is what everybody asks, and no one has the answer.”
Mawasi on the western outskirts of Khan Younis has been sheltering hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who fled to the area after Israel declared it a safe zone. Israel said its strike there on Saturday targeted Hamas military commander Mohammed Deif, an architect of the Oct. 7 assault on Israeli towns and villages that triggered the Gaza war.
The military said it struck an open area, with several buildings and sheds, adding it was a compound run by Hamas and not a tented camp.
Palestinian officials say at least 90 people were killed on Saturday and many hundreds wounded. Reuters journalists at the scene filmed carnage, with residents carrying the wounded and dead amid flames and smoke.
Further south in Rafah, the main focus of Israel’s advance since May, residents reported renewed fighting on Monday. Israeli forces in western and central parts of the city blew up several homes, they said. Medical officials said they recovered 10 bodies of Palestinians killed by Israeli fire in eastern areas of the city, some of which had already begun to decompose.
The military also stepped up aerial and tank shelling in central Gaza in the Al-Bureij and Al-Maghazi historic refugee camps. Health officials said five Palestinians were killed in an Israeli air strike on a house in Maghazi camp.
The Israeli military said the air forces struck dozens of Palestinian military targets across Gaza, killing many gunmen. It said forces killed gunmen in Rafah and central Gaza, sometimes in close combat.
EU imposes fresh sanctions on ‘extremist’ Israeli settlers
The European Union has announced sanctions on five Israelis — including those termed “extremist settlers” — and three organisations for abuses against Palestinians in the West Bank and blocking humanitarian aid to Gaza, AFP reports.
The asset freezes and visa bans are the second round of sanctions from the 27-nation bloc targeting violent Israeli settlers, taking the total number of listings to 14.
Prominent settlers blacklisted by the European Union included Moshe Sharvit, Zvi Bar Yosef, Baruch Marzel and Isaschar Manne.
“The listed individuals and entities are responsible for serious and systematic human rights abuses against Palestinians in the West Bank,” the EU said in a statement.
Israeli organisation Tsav 9 was also sanctioned for “regularly blocking humanitarian aid trucks delivering food, water and fuel to Gaza” through violent protests.
Hamas and Palestinian rivals Fatah to meet in Beijing: officials
Senior officials from rival Palestinian groups Hamas and Fatah have agreed to meet in Beijing this month in a renewed bid for reconciliation, AFP reports.
The Hamas delegation is to be headed by its Qatar-based political chief Ismail Haniyeh, while the Fatah representation will be led by deputy head Mahmud Alul, Fatah sources said.
Hamas had no immediate comment.
The representatives are to meet with Chinese officials in Beijing on July 20 and July 21, according to Fatah’s central committee deputy secretary general Sabri Saidam.
Before that, a meeting of the two groups could take place, he added.
The goal, said Saidam, “is to end the state of division with a commitment to past agreements and agreeing on a relationship between the Palestinian groups in the next stage”.
