Israeli strike on Gaza humanitarian zone kills and injures dozens, officials say

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A family photo of Carmel Gat.

A family member of Carmel Gat – whose body was among the six deceased hostages discovered in a Hamas tunnel earlier this month – has called for her “memory to be a deal” following the release of new video showing the dire conditions of her captivity.

In a poignant Facebook post, Gat’s cousin Gil Dickmann called on Tuesday for his cousin’s death to be the impetus for Israel’s government to negotiate a hostage release deal with Hamas, nearly a year after the October 7 attacks.

Responding to video released Tuesday by the Israel military that shows low ceilings and squalid conditions in the tunnel where the hostages are thought to have been kept, Dickmann accused Israel of wasting time while captives in Gaza languished in a “torture chamber” underground.?

“This torture did not kill them. What killed them was that the military pressure reached them, before the deal did,” Dickmann wrote.

“When I saw the shocking tunnel video that you will all see starting tonight, I couldn’t help but imagine Carmel there. She is almost my height. About 1.74 meters. There’s no way she can stand up straight there. I thought about the suffocation and the filth, about the darkness and heat that would drive one mad,” Dickmann wrote.

“The answer to this video, and to this murder, cannot be killing or revenge. There is no connection between Carmel and revenge. The answer to death is no more death. She is life. The answer must be a deal that will bring home alive the hostages who are still there - and the murdered for burial. Sorry Carmeli. May your memory be a deal,” Dickmann added.

“May their memory be a blessing” is a common saying in Jewish tradition after a death.

The Hostages and Families Forum described the IDF video as “shocking” in a statement released Tuesday, and called for the release of the remaining hostages in Gaza:?

“Hungry, exhausted, tortured, they cling to a single hope: that we will continue fighting for their freedom. They trust us to bring them home … Time is running out! That light, that hope, cannot die. A deal must be signed NOW!”

Israeli forces didn’t “have the intelligence” needed to launch a rescue mission for six hostages whose bodies were recovered from an underground tunnel in Gaza earlier this month, IDF chief spokesperson Daniel Hagari said Tuesday.?

“We didn’t have the intelligence that enabled us to conduct a rescue operation. We didn’t know the exact location of the hostages in the tunnel,” he said.

“They were murdered before we reached that point,” Hagari added.

After describing the “difficult conditions” the hostages were held in, Hagari said the IDF is currently aware of “other hostages who are being held in these conditions.”?

Over 100 hostages are believed to remain in Gaza.

The IDF released video showing the tunnel on Tuesday, September 10.

The Israeli military will use evidence found inside a Gaza tunnel to investigate the murder of six hostages held there, spokesman Daniel Hagari said Tuesday.?

After showing a pre-recorded video of himself exploring the tunnel where the hostages’ bodies were discovered earlier this month, Hagari told a press briefing that “all the findings you saw inside the tunnel were taken for investigation and testing. We are checking the materials, and we are exhausting every lead in order to get to the terrorists who are responsible for the vile murder.”

Some background: The bodies of six hostages held by Hamas were recovered from an underground tunnel in Gaza on Sunday, September 1. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said at the time that their bodies had been found in a tunnel under the city of Rafah, and that they had been “brutally” murdered “a short while” before Israeli troops were able to reach them.

The discovery touched off a massive wave of protests in Israel over the Israeli government’s failure to reach a ceasefire-and-hostage-release deal with Hamas, which controls Gaza.

(From top to bottom and from left to right) Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Eden Yerushalmi, Carmel Gat, Ori Danino, Almog Sarusi and Alex Lobanov.

The Israeli military’s chief spokesperson has shown the interior of the Gaza tunnel where six hostages were murdered before their bodies were retrieved by Israeli forces on Sept. 1.

During a press conference Tuesday, IDF spokesperson Daniel Hagari showed a pre-recorded video of himself exploring the tunnel, which he said was located 20 meters underground and was not high enough to stand in.

Holding a flashlight, Hagari also showed some of the items Israeli soldiers found in the tunnel: Empty and full bottles, a hairbrush, and baby wipes were among the items visibly scattered along the tunnel’s corridor.?

?He said it would have been “very hard” for the hostages to survive in the tunnel’s “difficult” conditions, describing them as “heroes.”

“They were here in this tunnel in horrific conditions, where there is no air to breathe, where you cannot stand,” he said.

“They survived, but they were murdered by terrorists,” he said.

Palestinians inspect the site following Israeli strikes on a tent camp sheltering displaced people in?Al-Mawasi, Khan Younis, on September 10.

There have been two major developments from the Middle East today, with dozens killed and injured in an Israeli strike targeting “senior Hamas terrorists” in a humanitarian zone in the south and separately, Israel accepting responsibility for the killing of an American activist.

If you’re just joining our coverage, here’s what to know:

Al-Mawasi strike:

Killing of American activist Aysenur Ezgi Eygi:

A family photo of Aysenur Ezgi Eygi.

The family of Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, the American activist who was killed while protesting in the West Bank on Friday, said they were “deeply offended by the suggestion that her killing by a trained sniper was in any way unintentional.”

Eygi, a Turkish-American woman, was shot in the head by Israeli forces responding to a weekly protest against an Israeli settlement near the Palestinian village of Beita, according to two eyewitnesses who spoke to CNN.

Israel investigated her killing, saying on Tuesday that she was “hit indirectly and unintentionally by IDF fire.”

Her family rejected the finding, describing the investigation as “wholly inadequate.”

“Ay?enur, an activist and volunteer, was peacefully standing for justice as an international observer and witness to Palestinian suffering; she was taking shelter in an olive grove when she was shot in the head and killed by a bullet from an Israeli soldier,” her family wrote in a statement posted to X by the Institute for Middle East Understanding (IMEU).

The family called for US government leaders to order their own independent investigation into what they said was a deliberate targeting and killing of a US citizen.

Earlier on Tuesday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken described Eygi’s killing as “both unprovoked and unjustified” and said Israeli security forces needed to make “fundamental changes” to how they operate in the West Bank.

Palestinian women sit at the site following Israeli strikes on a tent camp sheltering displaced people in Al-Mawasi, Khan Younis, on September 10.

International aid groups have once again raised alarm over attacks on designated humanitarian zones across Gaza following Israel’s overnight strikes that left at least 19 people dead.

The Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) called the designated humanitarian areas as “safe zones in name only,” noting that “Israel’s unlawful relocation directives have failed to protect or offer any guarantees of safety for Palestinians.”

The NRC described the images showing the aftermath of the strike as “horrifying,” noting that for “11 months, Israel has been forcing Palestinians in Gaza to flee from place to place without offering them genuine assurances of safety, proper accommodation or return once hostilities end.”

Separately, Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP), a UK based non-governmental organization, described the humanitarian zone as a “so-called humanitarian zone” and said their teams on the ground were “exhausted and traumatised.”

“We call on the international community to uphold its responsibility to protect Palestinians from further atrocities, including by immediately halting all arms transfers to Israel,” Fikr Shalltoot, the Gaza Director at MAP, said.

A man holds an injured child outside Nasser Hospital after Israeli airstrikes hit a refugee camp in Khan Younis, Gaza, on September 10.

Survivors of an Israeli strike in Al-Mawasi on Tuesday described the horror of looking for their loved ones in the middle of the night.?

CNN footage from the Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis shows men and boys performing Islamic funeral prayers for those killed in the strike, as rays of sunlight beam onto the courtyard of the medical facility.

The video shows Palestinians carrying the bodies of the victims, including children, in white shrouds, as women wail out on the steps of the hospital.?

“People thought they were asleep safely. Suddenly we woke up to the sounds of explosions, and fires were surrounding us from every side. We didn’t know where the strike hit, where the remains are, or where the blood is. Everything was scattered,” one eyewitness, Mahmoud Al Nims, told CNN.?

The Israeli military struck the Israeli-designated humanitarian zone in what it said was an operation targeting Hamas fighters. Hamas has denied having fighters in the area.

Israeli authorities have placed nearly 86% of the Gaza Strip under evacuation orders, according to the UN.?At least 1.9 million people, almost the entire population of Gaza, has been displaced, according to the UN. Many were forced to flee multiple times.

“Children are orphans, parents lost their children,” said another Palestinian, Taghreed Abu Assi. “They told us to go to Mawasi and we did, and they strike us. We have been displaced a hundred times.”

Palestinians walk through the remains of a tented area following Israeli airstrikes in the humanitarian zone, known as Al-Mawasi, in Khan Younis, Gaza, on September 10.

Dozens of displaced Gazans dug through the sand following Israeli strikes on Al-Mawasi, trying to recover what remained of their belongings, footage obtained by CNN showed.

At least 19 Palestinians were killed in the strikes on the Israeli-designated humanitarian safe zone overnight, according to the Ministry of Health in Gaza.

Poles that used to hold up tents were protruding from the sand, but everything else is buried. Mattresses, blankets and clothes were scattered around another – much bigger — crater on the other side of the camp. Dozens of people were staring into the gaping cavity.

Some survivors pulled canned food from under the sand. A girl with an injured hand watched as those around her attempted to rebuild their tents.

Mohammad Jarrour speaks to CNN.

Eyewitness Mohammad Jarrour told CNN that the camp was awoken to one, “then two, three, four, five strikes.”

Another witness Salem Abu Jara told CNN that Palestinians had been told the area was safe.

Salem Abu Jara speaks to CNN.

“Where is the safety? There is no safety. The Israelis offer no safety,” he said.

Palestinians inspect the damage at the site of Israeli strikes on a makeshift displacement camp in Al-Mawasi, Khan Younis, in the Gaza Strip on September 10.

Two weapons experts told CNN that the visual evidence from the scene of the Al-Mawasi strike suggests 2,000 pound bombs were used.

Trevor Ball told CNN that the remnants found at the scene appear to be parts of the tip of the tail of the thermal battery section of a Spice 2000 bomb guidance kit.

Ball, who is a former US Army explosive ordnance disposal technician, also said that the crater and the weapon remnants were consistent with the use of multiple Mk 84s 2,000 pound bombs.

Patrick Senft, a research coordinator at Armament Research Services (ARES), also told CNN that the evidence from the scene suggests a 2,000-pound bomb was used. He said:

“The SPICE 2000 kit can be attached to a variety of 2,000 pound unguided aerial bombs, turning them into highly precise munitions,” he added.

Secretary of State Antony?Blinken, right, gestures with Britain’s Foreign Secretary David Lammy at a meeting in London on Tuesday.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has described the killing of American activist Aysenur Ezgi Eygi in the occupied West Bank on Friday as unacceptable.

Speaking at a joint news conference in London on Tuesday with UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy, Blinken said that “no one” should be “shot and killed for attending a protest.”

His comments came in response to?a question about whether the US accepted Israel’s assessment of how Eygi was killed. Blinken said the Israeli security forces needed to make “fundamental changes” to how they operate in the West Bank.

On Tuesday, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it was highly likely that American activist Eygi was “hit indirectly and unintentionally by IDF fire,” following an investigation into her death. The military said the shot was not aimed at the activist but at “the key instigator” of a “violent riot” at the Beita Junction where it said Palestinians burned tires and hurled rocks at Israeli security forces. It didn’t name the alleged instigator.

Blinken added that the United States had “long seen” reports of Israeli forces ignoring extremist settler violence against Palestinians and reports of excessive force by Israeli forces against Palestinians.

An undated family photo of Aysenur Ezgi Eygi.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in a statement on Tuesday that it is highly likely that American activist Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, who was killed in the occupied West Bank on Friday, was “hit indirectly and unintentionally by IDF fire.”

The military said that the shot was not aimed at the activist, but at “the key instigator” of a “violent riot” at the Beita Junction where it said Palestinians burned tires and hurled rocks at Israeli security forces. It didn’t name the alleged instigator.

The IDF said that an investigation was launched by the Military Police Criminal Investigation Division (MPCID), the findings of which will be submitted for review by the Military Advocate General’s Corps.

Eyewitnesses told CNN on Friday that the 26-year-old activist, who is also a Turkish citizen, had been participating in a weekly protest against an Israeli settlement near the Palestinian village of Beita.

Dead bodies of the Palestinians who died as a result of Israeli airstrikes on a tent encampment are brought to the Nasser Hospital in Gaza to be buried on September 10.

The Ministry of Health in Gaza says at least 19 bodies have arrived at hospitals from the designated humanitarian safe zone in Al-Mawasi, southern Gaza that was hit by an Israeli strike overnight.

Earlier on Tuesday, Gaza’s Civil Defense had said that at least 40 people were killed in the strike.

The reason for the discrepancy in the two figures was not immediately clear.

A view from the area after Israeli airstrikes on a tent encampment Khan Younis, Gaza, on September 10.

The overnight strike on a humanitarian safe zone in Gaza that killed at least 19 Palestinians, according to the enclave’s Ministry of Health, comes just hours after children across the strip should have been returning to school on Monday.

It is not yet clear how many of those killed in the strike are children, but “entire families have disappeared in the sand,” Gaza’s Civil Defense spokesperson, Mahmoud Bassal said. Almost half of Gaza’s population are children.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it struck the facility to eliminate Hamas terrorists who were operating from within the humanitarian zone.

The tent encampment in Khan Younis, Gaza on Tuesday, following overnight Israeli strikes.

On September 9, Save The Children posted to Instagram that after nearly a year of war, “hundreds of thousands of children in Gaza are missing yet another year of education.”

“Every day away from the classroom means lost learning, missed opportunities and a future that grows more uncertain,” the organization wrote.

Separately to the strike in Al-Mawasi, at least six people, including two children, were killed in an Israeli airstrike on Tuesday near three polio vaccination centers east of Gaza City, according to the Gaza Civil Defence and information provided by a medical source at Al-Ahli Baptist hospital.

The strike hit a food stand in Al-Shawa Square in the eastern part of Gaza City, according to the Civil Defense.?According to the source at the hospital, it was a falafel stand and the man who owned it was killed.

The site is close to three schools serving as polio vaccination centers, according to a list published by the Gaza Health Ministry.

The Al-Tufah, Al-Saftawi, and Yaffa schools are located only several hundred meters from Al-Shawa square, according to a CNN analysis of satellite imagery.?

A further four people were wounded in the strike, according to Civil Defence spokesperson Mahmoud Bassal.?

Khader?Al-Za’anoun of Wafa, the official?Palestinian news agency, contributed reporting.

The Israeli military said Tuesday that its air force was targeting “a number of senior Hamas terrorists who were operating within a command and control center” in the humanitarian zone it struck overnight in Al-Mawasi, southern Gaza.

At least 19 bodies arrived at hospitals from the designated humanitarian safe zone in Al-Mawasi, southern Gaza that was hit by the strike, according to the Ministry of Health in Gaza.

Among those targeted were Samer Ismail Khadr Abu Daqqa, who the Israeli military says was the head of Hamas’ aerial unit in Gaza, Osama Tabesh, who was “the head of the observation and targets department in Hamas’ military intelligence headquarters,” and Ayman Mabhouh, who it said was “another senior Hamas terrorist.”

Israel did not provide any more information about the alleged Hamas militants. CNN is working to independently verify the claims and is seeking more information.

It said the targets were “directly involved in the execution” of the October 7 attack on Israel and have been planning to “carry out terror activities” against the military and the country, it said.

A general view of the area after Israeli airstrikes on a tent encampment Khan Younis, Gaza on September 10.

An Israeli strike on the sandy tent camp of Al-Mawasi has killed at least 19 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Ministry of Health.

Earlier, Gaza’s Civil Defense reported that at least 40 Palestinians were killed, and more than 60 others were wounded.

The reason for the discrepancy in the two figures was not immediately clear.

The attack hit a coastal area in southern Gaza, to which tens of thousands of people had fled Israel’s bombardment of other parts of the enclave. Many were living in thin tents with sparse infrastructure and little access to relief.

Eyewitnesses reported that at least five missiles struck the area.

What does Israel say? The Israeli military said it “struck significant Hamas terrorists who were operating within a command-and-control center embedded inside the humanitarian area” in Khan Younis.

In July, Israeli officials said Hamas’ military chief Mohammed Deif was among at least 90 Palestinians killed in a strike in Al-Mawasi.

What does Hamas say? The militant group said Israel’s statement that its fighters were in the area “a blatant lie, through which it (Israel) seeks to justify these heinous crimes.” Hamas said “dozens of unarmed civilians, most of whom were children and women” were killed in the strike.

What do rescue workers say? Local teams say they are struggling to recover people buried under sand and debris in scant light, as the Israeli offensive has depleted humanitarian resources in Gaza.

About 20 to 40 tents were destroyed, and “entire families have disappeared in the sand,” said Gaza’s Civil Defense spokesperson, Mahmoud Bassal.

The explosion created three large craters, Bassal said.

Teams conduct a search and rescue operation after Israeli airstrike on a tent encampment of displaced Palestinians in Al-Mawasi area of Khan Younis, Gaza on September 10.

Emergency crews wearing bright orange vests scoured dense, blown-out debris in Al-Mawasi on Tuesday after an Israeli strike on the coastal tent camp in southern Gaza killed at least 19 Palestinians, according to the Ministry of Health in Gaza.

CNN footage from the aftermath shows rescue personnel hauling large pieces of barbed wire, dusty mattresses, clothes, and blankets from debris in the dark after the attack at 1 a.m. local time.

“All those here are our relatives, our neighbors. It’s poor people, people who ran away from airstrikes and bombardments. They said this area is safe,” one eyewitness told CNN.

An eye witness to the attack speaks to CNN on the ground.

The eyewitness said the people in Al-Mawasi had rented land after fleeing bombardment elsewhere.

Families of several American hostages held in Gaza are calling on US presidential candidates Donald Trump and Kamala Harris to offer new ideas for securing the immediate release of their loved ones.

His 22-year-old son, Omer, is a serving Israeli soldier and was abducted by Hamas during the October 7 attacks.

CNN spoke with relatives of three US citizens held in Gaza who expressed frustration that attempts to free their family members had failed.

“Enough is enough,” said Adi Alexander, whose 20-year-old son Edan was serving in the Israeli military when he was abducted by Hamas on October 7.

All the family members who spoke to CNN said they were looking to the Biden administration, as well as Trump and Harris, to find creative ways to increase pressure on Hamas and Israel to reach a new deal.

“We want to hear new ideas from both candidates and for them to commit to adopting a fresh approach to all the players,” said Ruby Chen, another US-Israeli citizen whose 19-year-old son, Itay, was killed during the attacks last year. His body is still being held by Hamas in Gaza.

The family members told CNN that approaches should include the US seeking new pressure points on Hamas and its sponsor, Iran, as well as on other nations with potential influence, like Egypt, Turkey, and Qatar, the Gulf state that hosts Hamas officials and has helped facilitate negotiations.

Read the full story.

The Israeli military detained a convoy of?United Nations?vehicles for several hours in northern Gaza on Monday.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said they were acting “following intelligence that a number of Palestinian suspects were present in the convoy” and delayed it to question them.

The IDF said the convoy was not involved in transporting polio vaccines but was being used instead to exchange UN personnel.

A military official later told CNN the suspects and the convoy had been released.

Philippe Lazzarini, chief of the?UNWRA?– the UN’s main agency for Palestinian humanitarian relief – said the convoy was stopped at gunpoint after the Wadi Gaza checkpoint and held for more than eight hours despite “prior detailed coordination.”

During that time, bulldozers caused heavy damage to the UN armored vehicles, he said.

Lazzarini said the convoy contained national and international staff members who were meant to roll?out the UN’s polio vaccination campaign for children in Gaza City and northern Gaza. He added the agency could not confirm whether they could continue their work today.