According to reports: Hamas military leader targeted by Israeli attack

Israel said two Hamas commanders were the target of an air strike that Gaza officials said killed dozens of Palestinian civilians.

Mohammed Deif, commander of Hamas’ military wing, and Rafa’a Salameh, commander of Hamas’ Khan Younis Brigade, were targeted by Israel Defense Forces in an airstrike in the southern Gaza Strip, the Israeli army said.

Many believe Deif is the main organizer of the October 7 Hamas attacks on southern Israel. The rampage killed 1,200 people and took over 250 hostage. It was followed by Israel’s bombing and invasion of Gaza. According to the Gaza Health Ministry, more than 38,300 people have been killed in the war between Israel and Hamas, cited by The Associated Press.

The Times of Israel reported that the two were in a civilian area between al-Mawasi and Khan Younis, part of the humanitarian zone designated by Israel. However, the Israeli military said the attack was targeted and only targeted a Hamas position.

The Hamas-controlled Health Ministry in the Gaza Strip said at least 71 Palestinians were killed and more than 289 injured in the attack.

The IDF, the Newsweek IS, asked for comment, is still awaiting confirmation that Deif and Salameh were killed and said no Hamas-taken hostages were being held at the site of the attack.

The Saudi broadcaster al-Hadath, quoted in the The Times of Israelreported that Salameh was killed and Deif was “seriously injured.”

Senior Hamas official Abu Zuhri called Israel’s portrayal of the attacks “nonsense” and told Reuters: “All the martyrs are civilians and what happened was a serious escalation of the genocidal war supported by the Americans.”

Videos show bleeding injured people being loaded onto stretchers while people try to dig with their hands through the rubble of a large crater.

The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the premier would hold security talks through Saturday and that at the start of the war he had given “standing orders to eliminate senior Hamas officials.”

The humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip is deepening as Israeli authorities continue to order evacuations ahead of attacks aimed at eradicating Hamas.

An employee of the aid organization Mercy Corps said: Newsweek that every evacuation brings with it “more challenges and hardships”.

“We have already been through so much and it is a constant struggle,” the worker, who goes by the code name Rami, said in a WhatsApp message from the area where communications are spotty. “This situation is unbearable and words cannot fully describe the severity and despair of our lives at the moment.”

UN Secretary-General António Guterres said at a UNRWA conference on Friday that Palestinians in the Gaza Strip are forced to move “through a landscape of destruction and death” and that nowhere in the Gaza Strip is safe.

Update 7/13/24, 7:58 a.m. ET: This article has been updated with additional information.