Middle East latest: An Israeli strike on a Gaza tent camp kills at least 21 people

An Israeli strike on a tent camp housing displaced people in southern Gaza killed at least 21 people and wounded 28 on Wednesday, said the director of Nasser Hospital, Atif al-Hout, in the nearby city of Khan Younis. The Israeli military said its aircraft struck senior Hamas militants “involved in terrorist activities” in the area.

At least 15 bodies arrived at the hospital, but reaching a precise number of dead was difficult because many were dismembered, some without heads or badly burned. The strike hit in the Muwasi area, a sprawling coastal camp housing hundreds of thousands of displaced people. Earlier strikes elsewhere in Gaza killed eight people, including four children, health officials said.

Israel's war against Hamas has destroyed vast areas of Gaza and displaced 90% of the population of 2.3 million, often multiple times.

The war began when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking around 250 people hostage.

Israel’s blistering retaliatory offensive has killed at least 44,500 Palestinians, more than half of them women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not say how many of the dead were combatants. Israel says it has killed over 17,000 militants, without providing evidence.

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DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — A Palestinian health official said Wednesday that at least 21 people were killed by an Israeli strike on a camp housing displaced people in Gaza. Atif Al-Hout, the director of Nasser Hospital in the southern city of Khan Younis, said at least 28 people were wounded in the strike.

The Israeli military said its aircraft struck senior Hamas militants “involved in terrorist activities” in the area. The military said that the strike had set off secondary explosions, indicating explosives present in the area were set off. It was not possible to independently confirm the Israeli claims, and the strike could also have ignited fuel, cooking gas canisters or other materials in the camp.

At least 15 bodies arrived at the hospital, but reaching a precise number was difficult because many of the dead were dismembered, some without heads or badly burned.

The strike hit in the Muwasi area, a sprawling coastal camp housing hundreds of thousands of displaced people near the southern city of Khan Younis. It came after Israeli forces struck targets in other areas of the Palestinian enclave. Earlier strikes on central Gaza killed eight people, including four children.

Israel’s war in Gaza began when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting around 250 people. Some 100 hostages are still inside Gaza, at least a third of whom are believed to be dead.

Israel’s offensive has killed over 44,500 Palestinians in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not say how many were combatants. The Israeli military says it has killed over 17,000 militants, without providing evidence.

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.

JERUSALEM — Israel’s Shin Bet domestic security agency said Wednesday that Israeli forces recovered the body of a hostage held in Gaza.

Itay Svirsky was captured alive from southern Israel during Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack. Israel believes that he was killed while in captivity by his captors who held on to his body.

The Shin Bet did not disclose details of the mission to recover Svirsky’s body.

During its attack, Hamas killed 1,200 people and kidnapped 250. Israel believes roughly 100 remain in Gaza, about a third of whom are dead.

JERUSALEM — The Israeli military said Wednesday that soldiers had entered a West Bank hospital the previous day during a raid in search of militants, after initially denying the claim.

The military said several soldiers entered the hospital’s entrance hall, suspecting that an armed militant was inside.

On Tuesday, a Palestinian doctor working at the hospital in the town of Tubas said Israeli soldiers opened fire inside, a claim the military did not address in its statement Wednesday. The military had said its troops were operating around the hospital searching for alleged militants struck in an earlier airstrike but had denied the troops had entered.

The doctor, Mahmoud Ghanam, said the troops had left after learning that a wounded man had been transferred to another hospital.

Israeli raids on hospitals in the occupied West Bank are rare but have grown more common since the start of the Israel-Hamas war.

Violence in the occupied West Bank has surged since the war in Gaza began. The Palestinian Health Ministry says Israeli forces have killed about 800 people in the West Bank during that time. Israel says many of the Palestinians killed have been militants. But stone-throwing youths protesting Israeli raids and others not involved in confrontations have also been killed.

BEIR LAHIYA, Gaza Strip — Dozens of Palestinian families in northern Gaza said Wednesday they were forcibly displaced when Israel's military expelled them from schools they were using as makeshift shelters.

The fleeing civilians said Israel was expanding its major offensive in the north, the most heavily destroyed and isolated part of the Gaza Strip, which Israeli forces have almost completely besieged since early October. Experts say famine may be underway there.

Associated Press footage showed dozens of displaced families on the road leaving Beit Lahia — some on foot while others used motorized rickshaws, bicycles or donkey carts to carry kids, older adults and their remaining belongings.

Sadeia al-Rahel said Wednesday she was staying in a school in the town of Beit Lahiya when Israel's military dropped leaflets ordering everyone to evacuate.

“This morning a quadcopter (drone) detonated four bombs at the school. There were people injured, human remains, we left with nothing," she said. “They forcibly displaced us.”

The 57-year-old said her family has been eating grass, leaves, and animal feed for two months due to the lack of food aid in the north. “But no one cares” she added. Al-Rahel said her family didn’t even take blankets with them as they left.

Meanwhile, 20-year-old Hafez Warshal stayed in Beit Lahia with his family for 13 months before evacuating the school where he was sheltering. He said he had no idea where he would go next.

“We’ll stay wherever we find a place,” he said.

Israel’s war against Hamas has killed over 44,500 Palestinians in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not say how many were combatants. The Israeli military says it has killed over 17,000 militants, without providing evidence.

The International Criminal Court is seeking to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense minister over accusations of using “starvation as a method of warfare” by restricting humanitarian aid into Gaza. Israel rejects the allegations and says it has been working hard to improve the entry of aid.

JERUSALEM — The Israeli military said Wednesday that an investigation into the deaths of six hostages whose bodies were recovered from Gaza earlier this year determined that they were likely shot and killed by their captors in an underground tunnel after an Israeli strike hit nearby.

The military recovered the bodies of the six hostages – all men, including three in their 70s and one in his 80s — from the southern city of Khan Younis in August. The investigation said the strike in question was one targeting Hamas commanders in February.

“Due to the extended time that had passed, it was not possible to determine with complete certainty the precise cause of death of the hostages or the exact timing of the gunfire,” the military statement said.

An Israeli military official said the results were based on a “forensic examination” carried out after the bodies were recovered. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to discuss the findings with the media, and did not not provide details on the examination.

The military said it had no intelligence indicating that hostages were held in the area and would not have struck had it known. The military said that while troops followed all the necessary approvals for conducting the strike, it has added additional approvals to its protocols for certain strikes in response to the hostages’ deaths.

The war in Gaza was sparked when Hamas launched its Oct. 7, 2023 attacks on southern Israel, where militants killed 1,200 people and kidnapped 250. About 100 hostages remain in Gaza, with roughly a third said to be dead, according to Israeli authorities.

Israel has made destroying Hamas’ military and governing capabilities, as well as freeing the hostages, the goals for its war in Gaza. But critics say those goals are in conflict, with the lives of hostages in danger the longer Israeli fights in Gaza.

— By Tia Goldenberg

BERLIN — A Syrian photographer working for the German news agency dpa was killed by a fighter jet attack near the Syrian city of Hama, dpa reported on Wednesday.

The news agency couldn’t immediately give more details about when 32-year-old Anas Alkharboutli was killed. But the agency’s editor-in-chief, Sven Gösmann, said “all of us at dpa are in shock and infinitely saddened by the death of Anas Alkharboutli.”

“With his pictures he not only documented the horrors of war, he always worked for the truth,” Gösmann said. “In recent days in particular, his photos were seen around the world as he reported on the civil war that flared up again."

Alkharboutli joined dpa as a photographer in the Middle East in 2017. He mainly reported from the Syrian civil war zone.

Alkharboutli’s photography was recognized internationally. In 2020, he received the Young Reporter Trophy of the French Prix Bayeux for war reporting. At the 2021 Sony World Photography Awards, he won the Sports category with a series of images of children training in karate, the news agency said.

BEIT FURIK, West Bank — Jewish settlers mounted a string of attacks on Palestinian towns in the occupied West Bank overnight, burning homes and clashing with Israeli troops.

There were no immediate reports of any Palestinian casualties.

The Israeli military said Jewish settlers attacked the village of Beit Furik after troops arrived in the area to dismantle an unauthorized farming outpost they had built nearby on land privately owned by Palestinians. It said the settlers hurled stones, wounding two members of the paramilitary Border Police.

Adel Hanni, a resident of the village, told the AP that a group of roughly 70 settlers gathered on the village lands early morning as the troops took down the outpost. The settlers burned Hanni’s son’s home, a car, a village shop and smashed the windows of several more homes. An Associated Press reporter saw a blackened home and a destroyed car on Wednesday morning.

"Some settlers started to break into the house, while others carried incendiary materials,” said Hanni, 57.

Settlers also attacked the village of Huwara, which has been the target of several previous attacks — even before the outbreak of the war in Gaza — and clashed with troops near Rujeib, another Palestinian village, the military said.

Israeli police and the Shin Bet security agency said in a statement that they were investigating the settler attacks. They said they arrested eight Israelis for suspected property damage and assaulting security forces.

The West Bank has seen a surge in settler violence since the start of the war, which was triggered by Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack into Israel. Settlers have also raced to establish new farming outposts that rights groups say are among the biggest drivers of the violence.

The U.N.’s humanitarian office said settler attacks on Palestinian farmers during the recent olive harvest season “at least tripled” in 2024 compared to the last three years.

Israel captured the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war. The Palestinians want all three territories for an independent state.

The West Bank is home to some 3 million Palestinians who live under Israeli military rule, with the Western-backed Palestinian Authority exercising limited autonomy in cities and towns. Some 500,000 Jewish settlers with Israeli citizenship live in more than 100 settlements across the West Bank, many of which resemble suburbs or small towns.

Most of the international community considers the settlements to be illegal and an obstacle to peace.

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — Palestinian medics said Israeli airstrikes in Gaza on Wednesday killed eight people, including four children.

The Awda Hospital, which received the bodies from one strike, said five were killed as they gathered outside of shelters in the built-up Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, which dates back to the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s creation.

The hospital said another 15 people, mostly children, were wounded in the strike.

Also in central Gaza, the Al-Aqsa Hospital in the city of Deir al-Balah said it received the bodies of three people who were killed in what it says were two separate Israeli strikes early Wednesday.

The three dead include a man and a woman who were killed in a strike in Deir al-Balah, and another man killed in the urban refugee camp of Bureij, the hospital said.

The Israeli military said it struck a “terrorist target” in Nuseirat, without elaborating. It had no immediate comment on the other strikes.

The war began when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting around 250 people. Some 100 hostages are still inside Gaza, at least a third of whom are believed to be dead.

Israel’s offensive has killed over 44,500 Palestinians in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not say how many were combatants. The Israeli military says it has killed over 17,000 militants, without providing evidence.

JERUSALEM — Israel’s military said Wednesday it had returned the bodies of two militants who crossed into Israel from Jordan in October and shot two soldiers.

The militants entered Israeli territory south of the Dead Sea on Oct. 18, shooting and wounding two soldiers before being shot dead by Israeli troops. Hamas praised the incursion but not claim responsibility for it.

The Israeli military did not release the names of the militants who carried out the attack.