At least 19 killed in airstrike on Gaza 'humanitarian zone'

Israeli airstrikes on al-Mawasi "humanitarian zone" in the Gaza Strip have killed at least 19 people and injured a further 60, according to witnesses and medical officials in the blockaded Palestinian territory.

- Bethan McKernan

At least four missiles hit the overcrowded supposed "safe zone" on the coast early yesterday, causing dozens of tents to catch fire and leaving craters as deep as 9 metres, the civil emergency service said. Hundreds of thousands of displaced people are sheltering in Mawasi, where conditions are dire, after being ordered to move there by the Israeli military.

"Entire families disappeared in the Mawasi Khan Younis massacre, under the sand, in deep holes," the Gaza civil defence spokesperson Mahmoud Bassal told Agence France-Presse.

Dr Elspeth Pitt, a Scottish emergency doctor working at a field hospital in Mawasi run by the British medical humanitarian organisation UK-Med, said the clinic was shaken by large explosions shortly after midnight.

"We received 26 patients, mostly women and children. We had to do several amputations and dealt with shrapnel injuries and burns. The conditions are very challenging... there are supply chain issues all the time. At the moment we have a shortage of gauze. We are improvising and doing what we can," she said.