50 wounded in blast at Gaza training camp

At least 50 Palestinians were wounded in a blast that occurred Thursday inside a militant training camp in Gaza, Hamas officials, medics and witnesses said.

“An explosion happened inside a post of the resistance in Beit Lahya,” said interior ministry spokesman Iyad al-Bozum, in reference to the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas.

The health ministry spokesman in Gaza, Ashraf al-Qudra, said the blast wounded 50 people, five of them in a serious condition, and including children.

Witnesses said the blast took place inside a training camp of the Ezzezdine al-Qassam Brigades in the northern Gaza Strip, where Hamas is the de facto power.

A doctor in the Israeli-blockaded coastal enclave, Baker Abu Safia of Al-Awda Hospital, said 30 wounded people were brought to his establishment, most of them women and children.

He said the hospital “declared a state of emergency” after the explosion took place.