Turkey on Tuesday denounced an Israeli strike on a humanitarian zone in the Palestinian territory that killed dozens as another “war crime,” Agence France-Presse reported.
“We condemn Israel’s massacre of dozens of Palestinians in an attack on the tents of civilians in the so-called ‘humanitarian zone’ in Khan Yunis,” the foreign ministry said in a statement, saying Israel had “added a new crime to its list of war crimes.”
The strike hit Al-Mawasi — in Gaza’s main southern city of Khan Yunis — which was designated a safe zone by the Israeli military early in the war, with tens of thousands of displaced Palestinians seeking refuge there.
Israel’s military has occasionally carried out operations in and around the area, including a strike in July that it said killed Hamas military chief Mohammed Deif, and which Gaza health authorities said killed more than 90 people.
Gaza civil defense official Mohammed al-Mughair said 40 bodies and 60 wounded were taken to nearby hospitals following the strike in the early hours of Tuesday.
Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel that sparked the war in Gaza resulted in the deaths of 1,205 people, mostly civilians, including some hostages killed in captivity, official Israeli figures show.
Militants seized 251 hostages during the attack, 97 of whom are still held in Gaza, including 33 the Israeli military says are dead.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive in the Gaza Strip has so far killed at least 40,988 people, according to the health ministry in the territory.
The UN human rights office says most of the dead are women and children.
The vast majority of Gaza’s 2.4 million people have been displaced at least once during nearly a year of war, according to the United Nations.
The United States, Qatar and Egypt have been mediating in efforts to forge a ceasefire and hostage-prisoner exchange deal between Israel and Hamas, but talks remain stalled.
Hamas is demanding a complete Israeli withdrawal from Gaza as part of any deal, but Israel insists troops must remain along the Gaza-Egypt border.