An Israeli strike on a Palestinian tent camp kills at least 19

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — An Israeli strike hit a crowded Palestinian tent camp early Tuesday in Gaza, killing at least 19 people and wounding 60, Palestinian officials said. Israel said it targeted senior Hamas militants with precise munitions.

The overnight strike occurred in Muwasi, a sprawl of crowded tent camps along the Gaza coast that Israel designated as a humanitarian zone for hundreds of thousands of displaced civilians to seek shelter from the nearly year-old Israel-Hamas war.

Associated Press video showed three large craters at the scene. First responders dug through the sand and rubble with garden tools and their bare hands, using mobile phone flashlights until the sun came up. They pulled body parts from the sand, including what appeared to be a human leg.

“We were told to go to Muwasi, to the safe area ... Look around you and see this safe place," said Iyad Hamed Madi, who had been sheltering there.

“This is for my son,” he said, holding up a bag of diapers. “He's 4 months old. Is he a fighter? There's no humanity.”

Gaza’s Health Ministry said the death toll may rise as more bodies are recovered. The Civil Defense, first responders who operate under the Hamas-run government, had earlier said 40 people were killed. The Israeli military disputed that toll.

The ministry is also part of the Hamas-run government. Its figures are widely seen as reliable.

The Hamas government’s media office issued a statement explaining that the death toll discrepancies arose from different methods of counting the dead, saying the Health Ministry counts only bodies taken to hospitals while the Civil Defense also counts bodies that have not yet been retrieved.

An Associated Press cameraman at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis saw 10 bodies in the morgue, including two children and three women. It was one of three medical centers that received casualties, according to the Civil Defense.

“We were sleeping, and suddenly it was like a tornado," Samar Moamer told the AP at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, where she was being treated for wounds from the strike. She said one of her daughters was killed and the other was pulled alive from the rubble.

The Israeli military said it struck Hamas militants in a command-and-control center embedded in the area. It identified three of the militants, saying they were senior operatives who were directly involved in the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas that triggered the war and other recent attacks.

Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, an Israeli military spokesperson, disputed the initial casualty reports in a post on the social media platform X, saying they “do not line up with the information available to the (Israeli army), the precise weapons used and the accuracy of the strike.”

Hamas released a statement denying that any militants were in the area and calling the Israeli allegations a “blatant lie.” Neither Israel nor Hamas provided evidence to substantiate their claims.

Israel says it tries to avoid harming civilians and blames Hamas for their deaths because the militants often operate in residential areas and are known to position tunnels, rocket launchers and other infrastructure near homes, schools and mosques.

In July, Israel carried out a strike in the humanitarian zone that killed at least 90 Palestinians. The military said it targeted and killed Mohammed Deif, the shadowy leader of Hamas' military wing, but Hamas says Deif is still alive.

International law allows for strikes on military targets in areas where civilians are present, provided the force used is proportionate to the military objective — something that is often disputed and would need to be settled in a court, which almost never happens.

The war has caused vast destruction and displaced around 90% of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million, often multiple times. Israeli evacuation orders, which now cover around 90% of the territory, have pushed hundreds of thousands of people into Muwasi, where aid groups have struggled to provide even basic services.

Gaza’s Health Ministry says over 41,000 Palestinians have been killed since the war began. The ministry does not distinguish between civilians and militants in its count, but says women and children make up just over half of the dead. Israel says it has killed more than 17,000 militants in the war.

Hamas-led fighters killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, in the Oct. 7 attack. They abducted another 250 people and are still holding around 100 hostages after releasing most of the rest in exchange for Palestinians imprisoned by Israel during a weeklong cease-fire last November. Around a third of the remaining hostages are believed to be dead.

The United States and mediators Egypt and Qatar have spent much of this year trying to broker an agreement for a cease-fire and the release of the hostages, but the talks have repeatedly bogged down as Israel and Hamas have accused each other of making new and unacceptable demands.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant told reporters Monday that conditions are ripe for at least a six-week pause in the fighting that would include the release of many of the hostages still held in Gaza. However, he would not commit to a permanent end to the fighting — a central Hamas demand.

The war has plunged Gaza into a severe humanitarian crisis, and aid groups have struggled to operate because of ongoing fighting, Israeli restrictions, and the breakdown of law and order. Experts say Gaza is at high risk of famine.

The main United Nations agency providing aid to Palestinians said Israeli troops stopped a convoy of staff taking part in a polio vaccination campaign for more than eight hours on Monday, despite the agency's efforts to coordinate with the military.

UNRWA head Philippe Lazzarini wrote on the social media platform X that the convoy was stopped at gunpoint and that “heavy damage was caused by bulldozers" to the U.N. armored vehicles. The staff members were later released, and the vaccination campaign continued as planned.

The Israeli military said it held up the convoy based on intelligence indicating the presence of suspected militants. Israel has long accused UNRWA of having ties to militant groups, allegations the U.N. agency denies.

The vaccination drive, launched after doctors discovered the first polio case in the Palestinian enclave in 25 years, aims to vaccinate 640,000 children during a war that has destroyed the health care system.

Magdy reported from Cairo and Jahjouh reported from Khan Younis, Gaza Strip. Associated Press writers Tia Goldenberg in Jerusalem, Josef Federman in Tel Aviv, Israel, and Jon Gambrell in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, contributed to this report.

Follow AP’s war coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war

Mourners carry the covered bodies of Palestinians who were killed in an Israeli airstrike on a crowded tent camp housing Palestinians displaced by the war in the Muwasi, outside the hospital morgue in Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip, Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

Mourners pray over the covered bodies of Palestinians who were killed in an Israeli airstrike on a crowded tent camp housing Palestinians displaced by the war in the Muwasi, outside the hospital morgue in Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip, Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

Palestinians look at the destruction after an Israeli airstrike on a crowded tent camp housing Palestinians displaced by the war in Muwasi, Gaza Strip, Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2024. An Israeli strike killed at least 40 people and wounded 60 others early Tuesday, Palestinian officials said. Israel said it targeted "significant" Hamas militants, allegations denied by the militant group. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

Palestinians look at the destruction after an Israeli airstrike on a crowded tent camp housing Palestinians displaced by the war in Muwasi, Gaza Strip, Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2024. An Israeli strike killed at least 40 people and wounded 60 others early Tuesday, Palestinian officials said. Israel said it targeted "significant" Hamas militants, allegations denied by the militant group. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

Palestinians look at the destruction after an Israeli airstrike on a crowded tent camp housing Palestinians displaced by the war in Muwasi, Gaza Strip, Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2024. An Israeli strike killed at least 40 people and wounded 60 others early Tuesday, Palestinian officials said. Israel said it targeted "significant" Hamas militants, allegations denied by the militant group. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

Palestinians look at the destruction after an Israeli airstrike on a crowded tent camp housing Palestinians displaced by the war in Muwasi, Gaza Strip, Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2024. An Israeli strike killed at least 40 people and wounded 60 others early Tuesday, Palestinian officials said. Israel said it targeted "significant" Hamas militants, allegations denied by the militant group. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

Palestinians look at the destruction after an Israeli airstrike on a crowded tent camp housing Palestinians displaced by the war in Muwasi, Gaza Strip, Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2024. An Israeli strike killed at least 40 people and wounded 60 others early Tuesday, Palestinian officials said. Israel said it targeted "significant" Hamas militants, allegations denied by the militant group. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

Palestinians look at the destruction after an Israeli airstrike on a crowded tent camp housing Palestinians displaced by the war in Muwasi, Gaza Strip, Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2024. An Israeli strike killed at least 40 people and wounded 60 others early Tuesday, Palestinian officials said. Israel said it targeted "significant" Hamas militants, allegations denied by the militant group. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

Palestinians look at the destruction after an Israeli airstrike on a crowded tent camp housing Palestinians displaced by the war in Muwasi, Gaza Strip, Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2024. An Israeli strike killed at least 40 people and wounded 60 others early Tuesday, Palestinian officials said. Israel said it targeted "significant" Hamas militants, allegations denied by the militant group. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

Palestinians look at the destruction after an Israeli airstrike on a crowded tent camp housing Palestinians displaced by the war in Muwasi, Gaza Strip, Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2024. An Israeli strike killed at least 40 people and wounded 60 others early Tuesday, Palestinian officials said. Israel said it targeted "significant" Hamas militants, allegations denied by the militant group. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

Palestinians look at the destruction after an Israeli airstrike on a crowded tent camp housing Palestinians displaced by the war in Muwasi, Gaza Strip, Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2024. An Israeli strike killed at least 40 people and wounded 60 others early Tuesday, Palestinian officials said. Israel said it targeted "significant" Hamas militants, allegations denied by the militant group. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

Palestinians look at the destruction after an Israeli airstrike on a crowded tent camp housing Palestinians displaced by the war in Muwasi, Gaza Strip, Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2024. An Israeli strike killed at least 40 people and wounded 60 others early Tuesday, Palestinian officials said. Israel said it targeted "significant" Hamas militants, allegations denied by the militant group. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

Palestinians look at the destruction after an Israeli airstrike on a crowded tent camp housing Palestinians displaced by the war in Muwasi, Gaza Strip, Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2024. An Israeli strike killed at least 40 people and wounded 60 others early Tuesday, Palestinian officials said. Israel said it targeted "significant" Hamas militants, allegations denied by the militant group. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

Palestinians look at the destruction after an Israeli airstrike on a crowded tent camp housing Palestinians displaced by the war in Muwasi, Gaza Strip, Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2024. An Israeli strike killed at least 40 people and wounded 60 others early Tuesday, Palestinian officials said. Israel said it targeted "significant" Hamas militants, allegations denied by the militant group. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

Palestinians look at the destruction after an Israeli airstrike on a crowded tent camp housing Palestinians displaced by the war in Muwasi, Gaza Strip, Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2024. An Israeli strike killed at least 40 people and wounded 60 others early Tuesday, Palestinian officials said. Israel said it targeted "significant" Hamas militants, allegations denied by the militant group. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

Palestinians look at the destruction after an Israeli airstrike on a crowded tent camp housing Palestinians displaced by the war in Muwasi, Gaza Strip, Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2024. An Israeli strike killed at least 40 people and wounded 60 others early Tuesday, Palestinian officials said. Israel said it targeted "significant" Hamas militants, allegations denied by the militant group. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

A truck of humanitarian aids waits to cross the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip, Monday, Sept. 9, 2024. (AP Photo/Amr Nabil)

A worker stand near humanitarian aids at the logistic center near Rafah border crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip, Monday, Sept. 9, 2024. (AP Photo/Amr Nabil)

An Egyptian driver protects himself from sun at his truck of humanitarian aid as he waits to cross the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip, Monday, Sept. 9, 2024. (AP Photo/Amr Nabil)

An Egyptian driver protects himself from sun on his truck of humanitarian aids as he waits to cross the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip in Rafah, Egypt, Monday, Sept. 9, 2024. (AP Photo/Amr Nabil)

Humanitarian aids are seen at the logistic center near the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip, Monday, Sept. 9, 2024. (AP Photo/Amr Nabil)

European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell checks humanitarian aids at the logistic center near the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip, Monday, Sept. 9, 2024. (AP Photo/Amr Nabil)

Trucks of humanitarian aids wait to cross the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip, in Rafah, Egypt, Monday, Sept. 9, 2024. (AP Photo/Amr Nabil)

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is again lashing out at three of his biggest irritants: foreign steel, foreign aluminum and Canada.

The Trump administration on Wednesday will effectively plaster 25% taxes – tariffs – on all steel and aluminum imports. The president said on Tuesday that the U.S. would double the forthcoming levy on the two metals to 50% if they come from Canada — but pulled back on the threat by the afternoon after the province of Ontario suspended its plans for retaliatory tariffs.

The pain won’t just be felt by foreign steel and aluminum plants. The tariffs will likely drive up costs for American companies that use the metals, such as automakers, construction firms and beverage makers that use cans. The threats to the economy have rattled stock markets.

“Unilateral tariffs will raise prices, cost American jobs, and strain alliances,” Philip Luck and Evan Brown of the Center for Strategic and International Studies wrote in a report last month.

The latest tariffs are an amped-up replay from Trump’s first term.

In 2018, in an effort to protect American steelmakers from foreign competition, he imposed tariffs of 25% on foreign steel and 10% on aluminum, using a 1962 trade law to declare them a threat to U.S. national security.

The tariffs landed most heavily on American allies: Canada is the No. 1 supplier of foreign steel and accounts for more than half of aluminum exports to the United States. Mexico, Japan and South Korea are also major steel exporters to the U.S.

The president insists that steel imports are a threat to the very existence of the United States. “If we don’t have, as an example, steel, and lots of other things, we don’t have a military and frankly we won’t have — we just won’t have a country very long,” Trump said last week in his joint address to Congress.

His 2018 sanctions were gradually watered down.

Trump spared Canada and Mexico after they agreed to his demand for a revamped North American trade deal in 2020. For some U.S. trading partners, the tariffs were supplanted by import quotas. And the first Trump administration also allowed American companies to request exemptions from the tariffs if, for instance, they couldn’t find the steel they needed from domestic U.S. producers.

This time, Trump is closing those loopholes and raising the levy on aluminum to 25%.

He’s shown a willingness to go higher — as the apparently short-lived 50% tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum suggest.

Trump was originally punching back at the government of Ontario for imposing a 25% surcharge on electricity sold to the United States, a move that was itself a response to Trump's tariff threats. After Trump said he'd hit the Canadians with a 50% metals tax, Ontario suspended its planned electricity surcharge. In response, White House trade adviser Peter Navarro said the U.S. would pull back on doubling the tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum.

Trump’s first-term steel and aluminum tariffs benefited American producers of the two metals, encouraging them to increase production. But the beneficiaries were relatively few: The U.S. steel industry, for instance, employs fewer than 150,000 people. Walmart alone has 1.6 million employees in the United States.

Moreover, economists have found, the gains to the steel and aluminum industries were more than offset by the cost they imposed on “downstream’’ manufacturers that use steel and aluminum. In 2021, production at such companies dropped by nearly $3.5 billion because of the tariffs, canceling out the $2.3 billion uptick in production that year by aluminum producers and steelmakers, the U.S. International Trade Commission found in 2023.

This time, “there is no particular reason to think that the economics won’t be more of the same: small gains for the U.S. steel and aluminum producers and employees, but larger overall losses for the rest of U..S manufacturing,’’ said Christine McDaniel, research fellow at George Mason University’s Mercatus Center.

Taken by themselves, the metals tariffs are unlikely to do much damage to the nearly $30 trillion U.S. economy. “Steel and aluminum – they’re just a drop in the ocean,’’ said Satyam Panday, chief U.S. and Canada economist at S&P Global Ratings.

But Trump isn’t just hitting steel and aluminum. He’s slapped 20% tariffs on all Chinese imports. He’s set to hammer all Canadian and Mexican products with 25% taxes next month, while limiting the tariff on Canadian energy to 10% – moves he has twice postponed with 30-day reprieves. And he has an ambitious and complicated plan to impose “reciprocal tariffs,’’ raising U.S. import taxes to match those of countries that impose higher levies on American products.

The scope and unpredictability of Trump’s tariff agenda threatens to rekindle inflation and to slow growth by discouraging companies from making investments until the trade tensions have eased. “If you’re an executive in the board room, are you really going to tell your board it’s the time to expand that assembly line?” said John Murphy, senior vice president at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

U.S. steelmakers can step up production to offset lost imports. They can also raise prices – and have already started, putting U.S. companies that use American steel at a disadvantage to competitors who get theirs elsewhere.

U.S. steel was priced at $854 per metric ton as of Feb. 24, considerably higher than the average world export price of $488, according to Steel Benchmarker.

Aluminum is a different story. The United States has just four aluminum smelters and only two of them were fully operating last year. Increasing U.S. smelter production would require “enough power for a small city,” S&P Global said in a report last week.

Trump’s steel and aluminum tariffs quickly drew retaliation. The European Union imposed new duties on U.S. industrial and farm products. The EU measures will cover U.S. imports worth around $28 billion (26 billion euros) and include not only steel and aluminum but textile, home appliances and farm products. Motorcycles, bourbon, peanut butter and jeans will also be hit, as they were during Trump’s first term.

Canada plans to impose retaliatory tariffs on almost $21 billion (nearly Canadian $30 billion) of U.S. exports, a senior Canadian government official said Wednesday. The official wasn’t authorized to speak before the announcement and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Critics say Trump’s metals tariffs are hitting the wrong target.

China is widely seen as a source of the world steel industry’s problems. Chinese overproduction, heavily subsidized by Beijing, has flooded the world with steel and kept prices low, hurting steelmakers in the United States and elsewhere.

But the U.S. already uses trade barriers to keep out most Chinese steel. China accounted for less than 2% of U.S. steel imports last year, according to the American Iron and Steel Institute. “Instead of focusing on the real issue — China’s market-distorting policies — the United States risks entangling itself in tariff disputes with its closest allies,’’ wrote Luck and Brown at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Meanwhile, companies that use steel are already feeling the pain.

Steelport Knife Co. in Portland, Oregon, uses U.S. steel in its knives for home cooks and professional chefs. Last month, its American steel supplier, anticipating Trump’s tariffs, raised its price by 10%.

CEO Ron Khormaei says Steelport’s Japanese and German competitors are benefiting. “It’s cheaper for them,’’ he said. Khormaei says his small company — it has 12 employees — will lose business if it raises prices. So he’s doing everything he can to cut costs — keeping inventories tight, for example, and limiting travel to trade shows.

And he’s facing another problem. “Canadians are mad at us,’’ he said.

Khormaei said that one of his Canadian customers just cancelled an order by email: “Thank you. We love your product. We are not buying.’’

Rob Gillies in Toronto contributed to this story.

Protestors take part in a "Mothers out Front" demonstration against U.S. President Donald Trump and Elon Musk near the United States embassy in Ottawa, Saturday, March 8, 2025. (Spencer Colby/The Canadian Press via AP)

A board above the trading floor of the New York Stock Exchange shows the closing number for the Dow Jones industrial average, Tuesday, March 11, 2025. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)

FILE - President Donald Trump pumps his fist before departing on Marine One from the South Lawn of the White House, Friday, March 7, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)

Cars sit parked outside the United States Steel Corporations Edgar Thomson Plant in Braddock, Pa., on Tuesday, March 4, 2025, in Braddock, Pa. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)

A participant holds an "Elbows Up Canada" sign during rally in response to U.S. President Donald Trump's threats to Canadian sovereignty, on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, on Sunday, March 9, 2025. (Justin Tang/The Canadian Press via AP)