DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — Israeli forces shelled tent camps for displaced Palestinians north of Gaza’s southern city of Rafah on Friday, killing at least 25 people and wounding another 50, according to the Health Ministry in Gaza and emergency workers.

This was the latest deadly attack in the tiny Palestinian enclave where hundreds of thousands have fled fighting between Israel and Hamas. It comes less than a month after an Israeli bombing triggered a deadly fire that tore through a camp for displaced Palestinians in southern Gaza, drawing widespread international outrage — including from some of Israel’s closest allies — over the military’s expanding offensive into Rafah.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said the hospital was flooded with casualties and condemned the firing of “high-caliber projectiles” a few yards from the facility. Hundreds of people live in tents nearby, including many of the hospital staff, the ICRC said.

Ahmed Radwan, a spokesperson for Civil Defense first responders in Rafah, said witnesses told rescue workers about Friday’s shelling at two locations in a coastal area that has become filled with makeshift tents.

The locations of the attacks provided by the Civil Defense appear to be just outside an Israeli- designated safe zone on the Mediterranean coast. The Israeli military said the episode was under review but that “there is no indication that a strike was carried out by the IDF” inside the safe zone, using an acronym for the Israeli forces. It did not offer details on the episode or say what the intended targets might have been.

Israel has previously bombed locations in the vicinity of the “humanitarian zone” in Muwasi, a rural area with no water or sewage systems where displaced Palestinians have built tent camps in recent months.

Witnesses whose relatives died in one of the bombardments near a Red Cross field hospital said Israeli forces fired a second volley that killed people who came out of their tents.

The attack began with a munition that only made a loud bang and bright flash, said Mona Ashour, who lost her husband after he went to investigate what was happening.

“We were in our tent, and they hit with a ‘sound bomb’ near the Red Cross tents, and then my husband came out at the first sound,” Ashour said, holding back tears while clutching a young girl outside Nasser Hospital in nearby Khan Younis. “And then they hit with the second one, which was a little closer to the entrance of the Red Cross.”

Israel says it is targeting Hamas fighters and infrastructure and that it tries to minimize civilian deaths. It blames the large number of civilian casualties on combatants and says it’s because they operate among the population.

Israel is pushing ahead with the military operation in Rafah, where over 1 million Palestinians had sought refuge from fighting elsewhere in Gaza. Most have now fled Rafah, but the United Nations says no place in Gaza is safe and humanitarian conditions are dire as families shelter in tents and cramped apartments without adequate food, water, or medical supplies.

Elsewhere in the Gaza Strip, Civil Defense teams recovered the bodies of five people who were killed in an airstrike that hit two apartments in Gaza City in the north, and several others were wounded. An airstrike earlier Friday hit a municipal garage in the city and killed five people.

Fadel Naeem, the orthopedic chief at al-Ahli hospital, said bodies of 30 people had been brought there Friday, calling it “a difficult and brutal day in Gaza City.”

Meanwhile, the Israeli army said two soldiers were killed in combat in central Gaza. Three other Israeli soldiers were severely injured, the army said.

Israeli ground offensives and bombardments have reportedly killed more than 37,400 people in Gaza.

Israel launched the war after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, in which combatants stormed into southern Israel, killed some 1,200 people and abducted about 250.