Al-Mawasi is a fertile area for agriculture in the Gaza Strip. It is along the coast and has many sand dunes. Al-Mawasi is fourteen kilometers long and one kilometer wide, making up about 3% of the Gaza Strip. It is a Palestinian Bedouin town and prior to the 2005 unilateral Israeli disengagement from the Gaza Strip, it was a Palestinian enclave within the Israeli settlements of Gush Katif. Al-Mawasi had a population of 1,409 in the middle of 2006. Prior to the Israel–Hamas war, al-Mawasi had a population of 9,000. It has a number of buildings with a maximum of 100 structures.
The 2014 Israeli shelling of UNRWA Gaza shelters were seven shellings at UNRWA facilities in the Gaza Strip which took place between 21 July and 3 August 2014 during the Israeli-Gaza conflict. The incidents were the result of artillery, mortar or aerial missile fire which struck on or near the UNRWA facilities being used as shelters for Palestinians, and as a result at least 44 civilians, including 10 UN staff, died. During the 2014 Israel-Gaza conflict, many Palestinians fled their homes after warnings by Israel or due to air strikes or fighting in the area. An estimated 290,000 people took shelter in UNRWA schools.
During the Israel–Hamas war, the Israeli military ordered mass evacuations in Gaza, resulting in one of the largest displacements of Palestinians since 1948. On 13 October 2023, just one week after Hamas' attack on Israel, Israel instructed 1.1 million Gazans north of the Wadi Gaza, including those in Gaza City, to evacuate within 24 hours. This evacuation triggered a humanitarian crisis, which Palestinians have compared to the Nakba of 1948.
In the Gaza war, as part of the bombing and invasion of Gaza, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has conducted numerous airstrikes in densely populated Palestinian refugee camps in both the Gaza Strip and West Bank.
Since the outbreak of the Israel–Hamas war on 7 October 2023, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has conducted numerous airstrikes on more than 200 educational facilities, including universities, in the Gaza Strip. The IDF states such airstrikes are the result of the placement of military infrastructure and rocket launching from civilian areas, including schools. By late March 2024, the United Nations recorded more than 200 Israeli attacks on schools in Gaza, with at least 53 schools totally destroyed. By July 2024, all 19 Gaza universities had suffered severe damage with 80% of university buildings destroyed, 103 academics killed, and 90,000 students enrolled in higher education no longer able to pursue their studies. In June 2024, UNOCHA stated 76 percent of Gaza's schools required "full reconstruction or major rehabilitation", and in August 2024, UNICEF stated 564, or 85 percent, of all schools in Gaza had been hit by Israeli attacks.
Events in the year 2024 in Palestine.
On 26 May 2024, the Israeli Air Force bombed a displacement camp in Tel al-Sultan, Rafah. The attack, which set the camp on fire, killed between 45 and 50 Palestinians and injured more than 200. Sometimes referred to as the Rafah tent massacre or as the Tent Massacre, it was the deadliest incident of the Rafah offensive.
On 28 May 2024, Gaza emergency services reported that four tank artillery shells struck a tent city in the Al-Mawasi humanitarian zone west of Rafah, hitting a group of tents and killing at least 21 people, at least 12 of whom were women, and injuring 64 people, including 10 in a critical condition. The strike occurred in an area designated as an expanded humanitarian zone by Israel in the wake of the Rafah offensive which has led to the mass displacement of Palestinian civilians to tent cities outside of the city.
On 21 June 2024, Israeli forces attacked refugee tent camps in al-Mawasi, Gaza Strip just outside an area designated as a humanitarian safe zone. The Gaza Health Ministry reported that 25 people were killed and 50 others were injured in the two rounds of bombing. The bombing was the second Israeli bombardment of the al-Mawasi refugee camp in under a month, with an attack on 28 May killing over 21 people and injuring 64 more.
The June 2024 northern Gaza City airstrikes or Al-Shati and Tuffah dual airstrikes took place on 22 June 2024, when two airstrikes conducted by the Israeli Defense Forces occurred at roughly the same time in northern districts of Gaza City, striking the al-Shati refugee camp and the Tuffah district, killing at least 43 people and wounding dozens more.
On 13 July 2024, Israeli airstrikes hit the Al-Mawasi area near Khan Yunis in the Gaza Strip during the Israel–Hamas war. The attack killed at least 90 Palestinians, among them women and children, and injured over 300. Israel said that the strike targeted Hamas top leaders. Survivors reported that they were targeted without warning in an area they were told was safe.
On 10 September 2024, the Israeli military conducted airstrikes on a refugee camp it had designated as a humanitarian "safe zone" in Al-Mawasi near Khan Yunis in the Gaza Strip where displaced civilians had been sheltering during the Israel–Hamas war. Between 19 and 40 Palestinians were killed in the attack, over 60 others were injured, and several people were trapped under the rubble. The Palestinian Civil Defence described the attack as a massacre.
On 14 October 2024, the Israeli Air Force struck tents within the grounds of the Shuhada al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir el-Balah, Gaza Strip. As of 14 October 2024, at least 5 people were confirmed killed in the attack and at least 70 were injured after a major fire broke out in nearby tents. The death toll was expected to increase due to the large number of victims with severe burns. 25 people were transferred to Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza. It was the seventh attack on the hospital since March 2024. Following the spread of videos showing people burning alive in nearby tents, the White House expressed its concerns to Israel.
The winter of 2024–25 in the Gaza Strip has been marked by a humanitarian emergency due to over one million internally displaced Palestinians lacking adequate shelter amid winter storms leading to persistently cold temperatures and flooding. The crisis, exacerbated by ongoing conflict and severe restrictions on aid deliveries implemented by Israel on the Gaza Strip, left hundreds of thousands of families struggling to survive in makeshift shelters and tents as temperatures began to drop.
On 12 December 2024, the Israeli Air Force conducted an airstrike on a residential block in the Nuseirat refugee camp in Deir al-Balah Governorate which resulted in at least 33 civilian deaths and approximately 50 injuries. The airstrike targeted a postal facility being used as a civilian shelter, and caused significant damage to adjacent residential buildings.
Israeli Air Force 