Israeli strikes on tent camps near Rafah kill at least 25 and wound 50, Gaza health officials say

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israeli forces shelled tent camps for displaced Palestinians outside Gaza's southern city of Rafah on Friday, killing at least 25 people and wounding another 50, according to the territory's health officials and emergency workers.

This was the latest deadly attack in the Gaza Strip, where hundreds of thousands have fled fighting between Israel and Hamas. It comes less than a month after an Israeli bombing triggered a deadly fire that tore through a camp for displaced Palestinians in southern Gaza, drawing widespread international outrage — including from some of Israel’s closest allies — over the military’s expanding offensive into Rafah.

Witnesses whose relatives died in one of the bombardments near a Red Cross field hospital north of Rafah told The Associated Press that Israeli forces fired a second volley that killed people who came out of their tents.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said the hospital was flooded with casualties, including 22 dead and 45 wounded, and condemned the firing of “high-caliber projectiles” a few meters (yards) from the facility. Hundreds of people live in tents nearby, including many of the hospital staff, the ICRC said.

According to Ahmed Radwan, a spokesperson for Civil Defense first responders in Rafah, witnesses told rescue workers about Friday's shelling at two locations in a coastal area that has become filled with makeshift tents. The Health Ministry in Gaza reported the number of people killed and wounded in the attacks.

The locations of the attacks provided by the Civil Defense and the Red Cross hospital appear to be just outside an Israeli-designated safe zone on the Mediterranean coast, known as Muwasi. The Israeli military said the episode was under review but that “there is no indication that a strike was carried out by the IDF” inside the safe zone, using an acronym for Israel's armed forces. It did not offer details on the episode or say what the intended targets might have been.

Israel has previously bombed locations in the vicinity of the “humanitarian zone” in Muwasi, a rural area with no water or sewage systems where displaced Palestinians have built tent camps in recent months.

Israel says it is targeting Hamas fighters and infrastructure and that it tries to minimize civilian deaths. It blames the large number of civilian casualties on militants and says it’s because they operate among the population.

With Israel’s war against Hamas now in its ninth month, international criticism is growing over the campaign of systematic destruction in Gaza, at a huge cost in civilian lives. The top United Nations court has concluded there is a “plausible risk of genocide” in Gaza — a charge Israel strongly denies.

The attack near the Red Cross hospital began with a munition that only made a loud bang and bright flash, said Mona Ashour, who lost her husband after he went to investigate what was happening.

“We were in our tent, and they hit with a ‘sound bomb’ near the Red Cross tents, and then my husband came out at the first sound,” Ashour said, holding back tears while clutching a young girl outside Nasser Hospital in nearby Khan Younis.

“And then they hit with the second one, which was a little closer to the entrance of the Red Cross,” she said.

Hasan al-Najjar said his sons were killed helping people who panicked after the first strike.

”My two sons went after they heard the women and children screaming,” he said at the hospital. “They went to save the women, and they struck with the second projectile, and my sons were martyred. They struck the place twice.”

The hospital's location is known to all parties in the conflict and marked with the Red Cross emblem, the ICRC noted on Friday. The 60-bed field hospital was opened in mid-May to provide emergency surgeries, obstetric, pediatric and outpatient care, according to a news release at the time, which shows white tents covering an area about the size of a soccer field.

Israel is pushing ahead with its invasion of Rafah, where over a million Palestinians had sought refuge from fighting elsewhere. Most have now fled the city, but the United Nations says no place in Gaza is safe and humanitarian conditions are dire as families shelter in tents and cramped apartments without adequate food, water, or medical supplies.

Elsewhere, Civil Defense teams in the northern Gaza Strip recovered the bodies of five people who were killed in an airstrike that hit two apartments in Gaza City, and several others were wounded. An airstrike earlier Friday hit a municipal garage in the city and killed five people.

Fadel Naeem, the orthopedic chief at al-Ahli hospital, said the bodies of 30 people were brought there Friday, calling it “a difficult and brutal day in Gaza City.”

Meanwhile, the Israeli army said Friday that two soldiers were killed in combat in central Gaza. No information was given about the circumstances of the deaths of the two, both men in their 20s. Three other Israeli soldiers were severely injured, the army said.

Israeli ground offensives and bombardments have killed more than 37,400 people in Gaza, according to Gaza's Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between combatants and civilians in its count.

Israel launched the war after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, in which militants stormed into southern Israel, killed some 1,200 people — mostly civilians — and abducted about 250.

Associated Press writers Jack Jeffery in Ramallah, West Bank, and Drew Callister in New York contributed to this report.

Palestinians carry a person killed by Israeli bombardment to their burial in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, Friday, June 21, 2024. (AP Photo /Jehad Alshrafi)

Palestinian women mourn loved ones killed by Israeli bombardment, during their funeral in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, Friday, June 21, 2024. (AP Photo /Jehad Alshrafi)

Palestinian women mourn loved ones killed by Israeli bombardment, during their funeral in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, Friday, June 21, 2024. (AP Photo /Jehad Alshrafi)

Palestinians pray for victims of Israeli bombardment before their burial in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, Friday, June 21, 2024. (AP Photo /Jehad Alshrafi)

Palestinians carry a person killed by Israeli bombardment to their burial in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, Friday, June 21, 2024. (AP Photo /Jehad Alshrafi)

Palestinians pray for a victim of Israeli bombardment before their burial in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, Friday, June 21, 2024. (AP Photo /Jehad Alshrafi)

A Palestinian woman takes a last look at a loved one killed by Israeli bombardment, before his burial in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, Friday, June 21, 2024. (AP Photo /Jehad Alshrafi)

A Palestinian family mourns a loved one killed by Israeli bombardment , as they take a last look before their funeral in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, Friday, June 21, 2024. (AP Photo /Jehad Alshrafi)

FILE - Palestinians loot a humanitarian aid truck as it crossed into the Gaza Strip in Rafah, Sunday, Dec. 17, 2023. A persistent breakdown in law and order is rendering an aid route in south Gaza unusable, the UN and NGOs say, days after Israel's military said it would pause combat there to help aid reach desperate Palestinians. (AP Photo/Fatima Shbair, File)

The Israeli military released photos on Thursday that it says show a staffer with the aid group Doctors Without Borders wearing military fatigues at a gathering of Gaza militants.

The military says that Fadi al-Wadiya, who was killed in an airstrike earlier this week, was a “significant operative” in the Islamic Jihad group and was involved in its rocket program.

Doctors Without Borders, known by its French acronym MSF, did not respond to a request for comment on the photos, which were released late Wednesday. The aid group said earlier that it had no indication he was a militant.

Also Thursday, the Israeli military said a soldier was killed and 16 others were wounded during a military operation overnight in the West Bank. There were no immediate reports of Palestinian casualties.

On Wednesday, an Iranian-backed umbrella group known as the Islamic Resistance in Iraq claimed an attack targeting the southern Israeli port city of Eilat. The militants are allied with Yemen's Houthi rebels, who are suspected of attacking a ship in the Gulf of Aden the same day and one in the Red Sea on Thursday.

Shipping has reduced drastically through the route crucial to Asian, Middle East and European markets in a campaign the Houthis say will continue as long as the Israel-Hamas war rages in the Gaza Strip.

International criticism is growing over Israel’s campaign against Hamas as Palestinians face severe and widespread hunger. The eight-month war has largely cut off the flow of food, medicine and basic goods to Gaza, and people there are now totally dependent on aid. The top United Nations court has concluded there is a “plausible risk of genocide” in Gaza — a charge Israel strongly denies.

Israel launched the war in Gaza after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, in which militants stormed into southern Israel, killed some 1,200 people — mostly civilians — and abducted about 250.

Since then, Israeli ground offensives and bombardments have killed more than 37,600 people in Gaza, according to the territory's Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between combatants and civilians in its count.

Currently:

— Gunfire, lawlessness and gang-like looters are preventing aid distribution in Gaza, an official says.

— A Palestinian was shot, beaten and tied to an Israeli army jeep. The army says he posed no threat.

— The U.S. military shows reporters the pier project in Gaza as it takes another stab at aid delivery.

— Israelis’ lawsuit says a United Nations agency helps Hamas by paying Gaza staff in dollars.

— Ship attacked in Red Sea in latest maritime assault likely carried out by Yemen’s Houthi rebels.

— The U.N. tells Israel it will suspend aid operations across Gaza without improved safety.

— Man who police say urged ‘Zionists’ to get off NYC subway train faces criminal charge.

— Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Gaza at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war.

Here’s the latest:

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — A ship traveling through the Red Sea on Thursday reported being hit in an attack likely carried out by Yemen’s Houthi rebels, a private security firm said, the latest in the campaign targeting shipping over the Israel-Hamas war.

The ship issued a radio call off the coast of the rebel-held port city of Hodeida, saying it had been struck, the private security firm Ambrey said. A warship in the area was responding to the attack, Ambrey added.

It wasn’t clear if anyone was hurt or if the ship was damaged in the assault on the vessel. Neither the British nor U.S. militaries immediately reported the attack.

The Houthis did not immediately claim the attack. However, it can take hours or even days for them to acknowledge their assaults.

TEL AVIV, Israel — The Israeli military says a soldier was killed and 16 others were wounded during a military operation in the West Bank overnight. It said Thursday that an explosive device detonated in the area of the northern city of Jenin, which has seen frequent raids and gunbattles with militants in recent years.

There were no immediate reports of Palestinian casualties. Israel says it has arrested over 4,000 Palestinians in the West Bank since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack ignited the war in Gaza, including around 1,750 suspected of being Hamas members.

The Palestinian Health Ministry says over 550 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire in the West Bank since the start of the latest Israel-Hamas war. Most have been killed during Israeli raids and violent protests, though the dead also include innocent bystanders and Palestinians killed in attacks by Jewish settlers. Israel captured the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war. The Palestinians want all three territories for their future state.

JERUSALEM — The Israeli military has released photos that it says show a staffer with the aid group Doctors Without Borders wearing military fatigues at a gathering of Gaza militants.

The military says that Fadi al-Wadiya, who was killed in an airstrike earlier this week, was a “significant operative” in the Islamic Jihad group and was involved in its rocket program.

Doctors Without Borders, known by its French acronym MSF, did not respond to a request for comment on the photos, which were released late Wednesday. The aid group said earlier that it had no indication he was a militant.

The photos released by the military appear to show al-Wadiya wearing military fatigues in meetings with Islamic Jihad militants, but they could not be independently authenticated.

Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani, an Israeli military spokesman who shared the photos on the social media platform X, said that al-Wadiya tried to leave Gaza for military training in Iran when he joined MSF in 2018, without providing evidence.

“Al-Wadiya exploited his position in a humanitarian organization to further terrorist operations,” Shoshani said.

Doctors Without Borders said al-Wadiya, a medic and physiotherapist, worked for the group between 2018 and 2022, before resuming work with the charity during the war. It said he was killed while riding his bicycle to work on Tuesday.

The group said he was the sixth of its employees to be killed in Gaza since Oct. 7, calling their deaths “unacceptable.”

State Department spokesman Matthew Miller, asked about the competing claims on Wednesday, said the United States was not immediately able to resolve them.

The armed wings of Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other Palestinian militant groups are highly secretive, and fighters rarely identify themselves publicly for fear of being targeted in Israeli strikes.

A woman holds the body of her daughter Zena Naser, killed in an Israeli bombardment on a residential building in Maghazi refugee camp, outside the morgue of al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al Balah, central Gaza Strip, Tuesday, June 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

Relatives and friends of hostages held in the Gaza Strip by the Hamas militant group march with their photos during a rally calling for their release in Tel Aviv, Israel, Wednesday, June 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)

Relatives and friends of hostages held in the Gaza Strip by the Hamas militant group march with their photos during a rally calling for their release in Tel Aviv, Israel, Wednesday, June 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)

Relatives and friends of hostages held in the Gaza Strip by the Hamas militant group march with their photos during a rally calling for their release in Tel Aviv, Israel, Wednesday, June 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)

Israeli army tanks are seen in Wadi Gaza, central Gaza Strip, Wednesday, June 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

Israeli army tanks are seen in Wadi Gaza, central Gaza Strip, Wednesday, June 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)