Gaza officials say the death toll from Israeli air strikes on a camp housing displaced Palestinians near Rafah in southern part of the strip has risen to 40.

“The massacre committed by the Israeli occupation army in the refugee tents northwest of Rafah city in the southern Gaza Strip has left 40 martyrs and 65 wounded,” Mohammad al-Mughayyir, a senior official at the civil defence agency, told AFP news agency.

The attack led to a massive fire, which Palestinian Civil Defence teams managed to extinguish after about 45 minutes.

“The air strikes burnt the tents, the tents are melting and the people’s bodies are also melting,” one of the residents who arrived at the Kuwaiti Hospital in Rafah was reported as saying by the Reuters news agency.

Doctors without Borders, known by its acronym MSF, said “dozens of wounded” as well as more than 15 of the dead had been brought to a facility that it supports.