JERUSALEM: The Israeli military has said it had killed three senior Hamas militants in strikes on a designated safe zone in southern Gaza.

The strikes targeted a crowded tent camp housing displaced Palestinians in the Mawasi area of Khan Younis, killing at least 19 people, with more being trapped under the rubble, according to Gaza-based health authorities.

Video footage on social media showed dozens of tents caught on fire and large craters resulting from the strikes.

The Israeli military confirmed in a statement on Tuesday that it attacked the location, describing it as an intelligence-based "precise strike" targeting "senior Hamas terrorists operating within a command and control centre embedded inside the humanitarian area in Khan Younis", Xinhua news agency reported.

According to the Israeli military, the strikes killed Samer Ismail Khadr Abu Daqqa, head of Hamas's aerial unit in the Gaza Strip, Osama Tabesh, head of the observation and targets department in Hamas's military intelligence headquarters, and Ayman Mabhouh, a senior Hamas militant.

The three militants were "directly involved" in the Hamas attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, and had been "recently planning terror activities against the Israel Defense Forces and the State of Israel," the military said.

Later, the Israeli army conducted another attack on the Al-Farouq Mosque in the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza. The army said the attack aimed to destroy another Hamas command and control centre located within the mosque.

The Palestinian news agency Quds News reported an unspecified number of casualties and injuries in Bureij.