13 July 2024 al-Mawasi Attack

On 13 July 2024, Israeli airstrikes struck the Al-Mawasi area near Khan Yunis in the Gaza Strip, an area Israel had designated a humanitarian safe zone in December 2023 for displaced Palestinian civilians. The attack killed at least 90 Palestinians, including women and children, and injured over 300, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. The Palestine Red Crescent Society said its ambulance crews treated 102 injured patients and recovered 23 bodies. Survivors and local officials reported the strike hit tents housing displaced people as well as a separate building.

Israel said the strike targeted and killed Mohammed Deif, the military commander of Hamas, and Rafa Salama, commander of Hamas's Khan Younis Brigade, both described as key planners of the 7 October 2023 attacks. According to reporting, the Israel Defense Forces dropped eight 2,000-pound bombs on al-Mawasi during the attack, with at least one bomb identified as having been manufactured in the United States. Analysis of videos and photographs indicated two separate airstrikes occurred: one that struck a building and left a large crater, and a second, smaller strike that hit a street near two emergency rescue vehicles roughly 100 yards away.

Eyewitnesses, a local journalist, and the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor said that after the initial strikes, quadcopter aircraft waited for ambulance and civil defence teams to arrive and then opened fire on them. Two members of the Palestinian Civil Defence were reported killed in this follow-up attack on rescuers.

The IDF confirmed Rafa Salama's death the day after the strike. On 1 August 2024, the IDF said it had confirmed, based on an intelligence assessment, that Deif had also been killed in the strike. Hamas initially dismissed these claims but privately acknowledged Deif's death by early November 2024, according to Asharq Al-Awsat, and the Al-Qassam Brigades publicly confirmed both deaths on 30 January 2025.

The attack drew international condemnation, including from Arab states, the European Union, and the United Nations. The EU's foreign policy chief called for an independent investigation and described the strike as a possible war crime. United Nations officials, including the Secretary-General and UNRWA and OHCHR representatives, expressed concern over civilian casualties in an area designated as safe. The Israeli government, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, defended the strike as targeting senior Hamas leadership.

On 21 November 2024, the International Criminal Court issued a warrant for Mohammed Deif's arrest, noting that evidence of his death was less conclusive than for other reported Hamas deaths at the time. The same day, the ICC separately issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant over alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza between 8 October 2023 and 20 May 2024, a period that ends before this 13 July 2024 strike and does not cite it. After Hamas confirmed Deif's death, the ICC cancelled his warrant on 26 February 2025, with prosecutors stating there was "sufficient and reliable information" that Deif had been killed on 13 July 2024.