JERUSALEM: Nineteen Hamas activists were killed and 80 were wounded as a series of explosions rocked a rally of the Islamic militant faction at the Jabaliya refugee camp in the Gaza Strip, hospital sources said.
Two children and several gunmen were killed in the blasts, witnesses said.
Hamas accused Israel of targeting its rally with missiles fired from drones and vowed to avenge the 'massacre' while some Palestinian officials said explosives being demonstrated at the rally may have exploded in an accident.
"This is a massacre, a real carnage and we will avenge it," Sami Abu Zuhri, a spokesman for the militant faction, said while rejecting claims by Palestinian Authority officials who called it a "working accident."
"I saw the missiles with my two own eyes and thousands of people saw these missiles coming," he said, adding "how come some PA officials deny and acquit Zionist enemy of the crime."
A statement from the Israel Defence Forces rejected the claims as 'baseless,' warning that "any attempt to use this incident as a pretext for attacks against Israeli civilians will be viewed with gravity."
At a press conference organised several hours after the incident, Hamas officials claimed the rockets displayed at the rally were dummies.
Palestinian militants fired rockets into Israel from the Gaza Strip on Saturday, wounding five Israelis, the Israeli army said.
The attack followed explosions at a rally held by the Hamas.
The army said five Israelis were wounded by flying shrapnel from a rocket that landed in the southern Israeli town of Sderot, in the worst attack since Palestinian militants declared an eight-month truce in March.
Israeli helicopters Saturday carried out pre-dawn attacks on targets connected with Hamas in the Gaza Strip, the army said.
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