At least 70 people were killed in an Israeli airstrike on Christmas Eve in the Al-Maghazi refugee camp in the centre of Gaza, Palestinian authorities in the besieged strip said.
The Hamas-run health ministry said that at least 12 women and seven children were among those killed in a late-night strike, which destroyed several houses in the refugee camp.
Ashraf al-Qidra, a spokesperson for the health ministry, called the airstrike a “massacre”, adding that the death toll was likely to climb.
“What is happening at the Maghazi camp is a massacre that is being committed on a crowded residential square,” he told Reuters.
Videos from the camp showed dozens of injured, including children, being rushed to the nearby Al-Aqsa hospital, while some of the bodies were piled outside in body bags.
Hamas militants in a statement called the airstrike a “horrific massacre” which was a “new war crime”.
A father, who lost his daughter and grandchildren, told BBC that the family had fled from the north for safety in central Gaza.
“They lived on the third floor of one of the buildings,” he said, adding that the walls collapsed on them.
“My grandchildren, my daughter, her husband – all gone.
“We are all targeted. Civilians are targeted. There is no safe place. They told us to leave Gaza City – now we came to central Gaza to die,” the man told the broadcaster.
The Israeli military said it was reviewing the incident.
“Despite the challenges posed by Hamas terrorists operating within civilian areas in Gaza, the IDF is committed to international law including taking feasible steps to minimise harm to civilians,” the Israeli forces said.
The Palestinian health ministry said another 10 members of one family were killed in an Israeli strike on their house in the Jabalia camp in northern Gaza.
On Saturday, an Israeli airstrike killed 76 members of an extended family, rescue officials said as the Israel-Hamas war continued on its 12th week.
Israel said it lost 14 soldiers amid intense fighting in the Gaza Strip over the weekend. The Israeli military suffered losses in central and southern Gaza as its forces battled Hamas militants in “close-quarters combat” in Khan Younis near the territory’s border with Egypt.
Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu admitted a “very difficult” day of fighting but vowed to press on with the offensive despite calls for a pause.
Christmas celebrations were cancelled in Bethlehem, the Israeli-occupied Palestinian West Bank city, the biblical birthplace of Jesus.
“Tonight, our hearts are in Bethlehem, where the Prince of Peace is once more rejected by the futile logic of war, by the clash of arms that even today prevents him from finding room in the world,” Pope Francis said at Christmas Eve Mass in Rome’s St Peter’s Basilica.
