Israeli strike targets Hamas military commander and kills at least 90 in southern Gaza
KHAN YUNIS, Gaza Strip — Israel said it targeted Hamas’ elusive military commander in a massive strike Saturday in a designated safe zone in southern Gaza that killed at least 90 people including children, according to local health officials.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said “there still isn’t absolute certainty” that Mohammed Deif and a second Hamas commander, Rafa Salama, were killed.
Hamas rejected the claim that Deif was in the area, saying “these false claims are merely a cover-up for the scale of the horrific massacre.” The strike took place in an area Israel’s military had designated as safe for hundreds of thousands of Palestinians.
Israeli officials confirmed that Deif and Salama were the targets. A military official later said they were “still checking and verifying the result of the strike,” and did not deny it took place inside the Israeli-designated safe zone.
Deif and Hamas’ top official in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, are believed by Israel to be the chief architects of the Oct. 7 attack that killed some 1,200 people in southern Israel and triggered the Israel-Hamas war. Not seen in public for years, Deif has long topped Israel’s most-wanted list and is believed to have escaped multiple Israeli assassination attempts.
On Oct. 7, Hamas issued a rare voice recording of Deif announcing the “Al Aqsa Flood” operation.
The strike came at a delicate time in cease-fire efforts. Deif’s death would hand Israel a major victory and Hamas a painful psychological blow. It also could give Netanyahu a possible opening. Again on Saturday, the prime minister said Israel will not end the war until Hamas’ military capabilities are destroyed. Deif’s death would be a significant step in that direction.
All Hamas leaders are marked for death and “we will reach them all,” Netanyahu said. He added that no hostages believed still held by Hamas had been nearby when the strike occurred.
Deif’s killing could also encourage Hamas to harden its positions in talks. He has been in hiding for more than two decades and is believed to be paralyzed. One of the only known images of him is a 30-year-old ID photo released by Israel. Even in Gaza, only a handful of people would recognize him.
Saturday’s attack was one of the war’s deadliest. The Gaza Health Ministry reported 90 dead and at least 300 others injured. Associated Press journalists counted more than 40 bodies at overwhelmed Nasser Hospital nearby. Witnesses described an attack that included several strikes.
Israel’s new ground assault in Gaza’s largest city is its latest effort to battle Hamas militants regrouping in areas the army previously said had been largely cleared.
“A number of victims are still under the rubble and on the roads, and ambulance and civil defense crews are unable to reach them,” the Health Ministry said.
The Israeli military asserted that “additional terrorists hid among civilians” and described the strike location as an area surrounded by trees, several buildings and sheds.
An Israeli official said the strike hit a fenced area of Khan Yunis that was run by Hamas, saying it was not a tent complex but an operational compound. The official described the strike as precise. The army said the compound belonged to Salama.
Witnesses said the strike landed inside Muwasi, the Israeli-designated safe zone that stretches from northern Rafah to Khan Yunis. The coastal strip is where hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians have fled to in search of safety, sheltering mostly in sweltering, makeshift tents and with few basic services or supplies. More than 80% of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been driven from their homes.
The report focused on the border community of Beeri, where more than 100 people were killed and more than 30 others taken hostage by Hamas militants.
Video of the aftermath showed a huge crater, charred tents, burnt-out cars and household belongings scattered across the blackened earth. Victims were carried on the hoods and in the hatchbacks of cars, and on donkey carts and carpets.
“Children were all martyred here,” said one displaced Palestinian man who did not give his name. “We collected their pieces with our hands.”
At the hospital, a baby in a pink shirt, her face covered with sand, cried while receiving first aid. A small boy lay motionless at the other end of the bed, one shoe gone. Victims lay amid spattered blood on the floor, and bodies were wrapped in white plastic scrawled in marker with their names.
There was “the overwhelming stench of blood,” said Louise Wateridge, a spokesperson with the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees who visited the hospital and spoke with several patients. Staff said there were no cleaning products left.
The blast threw a 2-year-old child into the air and the mother was missing, Wateridge said. Another boy had his feet blown off, while an 8-year-old boy was killed. “They told me to go there to be safe,” his grieving mother told her of the area struck.
Israeli ground attacks and bombardments have killed more than 38,400 people in Gaza and wounded more than 88,000, according to the territory’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between combatants and civilians in its count.
The U.N. human rights office in a statement said Israel’s continued use of weapons with wide effect in densely populated civilian areas “suggests a pattern of willful violation of the disregard of international humanitarian law principles.”
Neighboring Egypt, a mediator in cease-fire talks, condemned Saturday’s strike. “These ongoing violations against Palestinian citizens add serious complications to the ability of the efforts currently being made to reach calm and a cease-fire,” its Foreign Ministry said in a statement. It also criticized the “shameful silence and lack of action from the international community.”
Egyptian, Qatari and U.S. mediators have been pushing to narrow gaps between Israel and Hamas over a proposed deal for a three-phase cease-fire and hostage release plan in Gaza. The militants who stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7 abducted about 250 people. More than 100 have been released. Around 120 hostages are believed to remain in Gaza, though Israel believes at least 40 of them are dead.
The U.S.-backed proposal calls for an initial cease-fire with a limited hostage release and the withdrawal of Israeli troops from populated areas in Gaza. At the same time, the two sides will negotiate terms of the second phase, which is supposed to bring a full hostage release in return for a permanent cease-fire and complete Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.
Netanyahu said he wasn’t moving from the U.S.-backed proposal but listed four conditions: Israel’s right to continue the war until its goals are achieved, the return of as many hostages as possible in the deal’s first stage, no return of Hamas fighters to northern Gaza and the prevention of arms smuggling, including control of the key Philadelphi corridor between Gaza and Egypt.
Associated Press writers JahJouh and Federman reported from Khan Yunis and Jerusalem, respectively. AP writers Jack Jeffery in Ramallah, West Bank, Fatma Khaled in Cairo and Abby Sewell and Bassem Mroue, Beirut, contributed to this report.
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