Gaza officials say children killed in strike as Israeli military admits ‘error’

Ten people, including six children, have been killed in an Israeli air strike while waiting to fill water containers in central Gaza on Sunday, emergency service officials say.

Their bodies were sent to Nuseirat’s al-Awda Hospital, which also treated 16 injured people including seven children, a doctor there said.

Eyewitnesses said a drone fired a missile at a crowd queuing with empty jerry cans next to a water tanker in al-Nuseirat refugee camp.

The Israeli military said there had been a “technical error” with a strike targeting an Islamic Jihad “terrorist” that caused the munition to fall dozens of meters from the target. The incident is under review, the military added.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it was aware of the “claim regarding casualties in the area as a result”, adding that it works to mitigate civilian harm “as much as possible” and “regrets any harm to uninvolved civilians”.

Unverified footage shared online after the strike showed bloodied children and lifeless bodies, with screams of panic and desperation.

Residents rushed to the scene and transported the wounded using private vehicles and donkey carts.

The strike came as Israeli aerial attacks across the Gaza Strip have escalated.

A spokesperson for Gaza’s Civil Defence Agency said 19 other Palestinians had been killed on Sunday, in three separate strikes on residential buildings in central Gaza and Gaza City.

Separately, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said it had treated more mass casualty cases at its Rafah field hospital in southern Gaza in the last six weeks than in the 12 months before that.

It said that its field hospital in Rafah had received 132 patients “suffering from weapon-related injuries” on Saturday, 31 of whom died.

The “overwhelming majority” of the patients had gunshot wounds, it added, and “all responsive individuals” reported they had been trying to access food distribution sites.

It said that the hospital had treated more than 3,400 weapon-wounded patients and recorded more than 250 deaths since new food distribution sites opened on 27 May – exceeding “all mass casualty cases treated at the hospital” in the year prior.

“The alarming frequency and scale of these mass casualty incidents underscore the horrific conditions civilians in Gaza are enduring,” the ICRC said.

On Saturday, southern Gaza’s Nasser hospital said 24 people were killed near an aid distribution site, where witnesses said Israeli troops had opened fire as people were trying to access food.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said there were “no known injured individuals” from IDF fire near the site. Separately, an Israeli military official said warning shots were fired to disperse people who the IDF believed were a threat.

The UN human rights office said on Friday that it had so far recorded 789 aid-related killings.

It said that of those, 615 were in the vicinity of the US and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF)’s sites, which opened on 27 May and are operated by US private security contractors inside military zones in southern and central Gaza.

The other 183 killings were recorded near UN and other aid convoys.

The Israeli military said it recognised there had been incidents in which civilians had been harmed and that it was working to minimise “possible friction between the population and the [Israeli] forces as much as possible”.

The GHF accused the UN of using “false and misleading” statistics from Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry.

GHF boss Johnnie Moore previously told the BBC he was not denying deaths near aid sites, but said “100% of those casualties are being attributed to close proximity to GHF” and that was “not true”.

Israel does not allow international news organisations, including the BBC, into Gaza.

Israel launched a military campaign in Gaza in response to Hamas’s cross-border attack on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.

At least 57,882 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

Most of Gaza’s population has been displaced multiple times.

More than 90% of homes are estimated to be damaged or destroyed. The healthcare, water, sanitation and hygiene systems have collapsed, and there are shortages of food, fuel, medicine and shelter.

This week, for the first time in 130 days, 75,000 litres of fuel was allowed into Gaza – “far from enough to meet the daily needs of the population and vital civilian aid operations”, the United Nations said.

Nine UN agencies warned on Saturday that Gaza’s fuel shortage had reached “critical levels”, and if fuel ran out, it would affect hospitals, water systems, sanitation networks and bakeries.

“Hospitals are already going dark, maternity, neonatal and intensive care units are failing, and ambulances can no longer move,” the UN said.