Israel bombed southern and central Gaza today, Monday, to pressure Hamas, following an airstrike over the weekend that targeted the leadership of the armed group and resulted in the deaths of dozens of Palestinians who were camping in a “safe area.”

After two days of the Israeli raid turning a crowded area of Mawasi near the Mediterranean coast into a scorched wasteland filled with burned cars and disfigured bodies, displaced survivors said they had no idea where to go next.

Aya Muhammad, 30, a market vendor in Mawasi, reached by mobile phone, said: “Those moments when the ground shook beneath my feet and dust and sand rose into the sky and I saw dismembered bodies - I have never seen anything like it in my life.”

“Where do we go is what everyone is asking, and no one has the answer.”

The Mawasi area on the western outskirts of Khan Younis is home to hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who fled to the area after Israel declared it a safe zone. Israel said its airstrike there on Saturday targeted Hamas military leader Mohammed Deif, the architect of the October 7 attack on Israeli towns and villages that led to the Gaza war.

Palestinian officials say at least 90 people were killed on Saturday and hundreds were injured. Reuters journalists at the scene captured the massacre as residents carried the injured and dead amid flames and smoke.

To the south in Rafah, the main focus of Israeli advances since May, residents reported renewed fighting on Monday. They added that Israeli forces in the western and central parts of the city blew up several homes. Medical officials said they recovered 10 bodies of Palestinians killed by Israeli fire in the eastern parts of the city, some of which had already begun to decompose.

The military also intensified airstrikes and tank shelling in central Gaza in the historic refugee camps of al-Bureij and al-Maghazi. Health officials said five Palestinians were killed in an Israeli airstrike on a house in al-Maghazi camp.

The Israeli army said its air force struck dozens of Palestinian military targets across Gaza, resulting in the deaths of many militants. It added that forces killed militants in Rafah and central Gaza, sometimes in close combat.

A statement from the Al-Quds Brigades, the military wing of Islamic Jihad, mentioned that its fighters were engaged in fierce battles in the Yebna camp in Rafah.

Discussions

The massacre that occurred on Saturday in Mawasi, one of the deadliest Israeli strikes in the war, overshadowed negotiations that both sides had previously described as the closest yet to a permanent ceasefire. A senior Hamas official said on Sunday that the movement had not pulled out of the talks despite the assault on Mawasi.

Israel claims that another senior commander was killed in the raid but has not yet confirmed Deif's fate. Hamas officials denied Deif's death.

The Gaza Health Ministry said that at least 38,000 Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli military offensive since October 7. It does not distinguish between combatants and non-combatants, but officials say most of the dead throughout the war have been civilians.

Israel states that it has lost 326 soldiers in Gaza and claims that at least a third of the Palestinian fatalities are militants.

The war began after a Hamas-led attack inside Israel on October 7, carried out by gunmen that resulted in the deaths of 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and the taking of over 250 hostages in Gaza, according to Israeli authorities.