Hamas mastermind of October 7 attack targeted in deadly Gaza attack, Israel claims | Israel-Gaza War

According to the Israeli military, Hamas military chief Mohammed Deif, the mastermind of the October 7 attack, was the target of an attack in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip. According to the area’s emergency services, 90 people were killed and hundreds more injured in the attack.

Deif, 58, who has been on Israel’s most wanted list since 1995 and escaped several Israeli assassination attempts, is considered the main perpetrator of the attack that killed 1,200 people in southern Israel and sparked the war between Israel and Hamas.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said Rafa Salama, another senior Hamas official, was also targeted in the attack. The IDF did not provide details on whether the two were killed.

A military official later said that they were “still reviewing and verifying the outcome of the attack,” but did not deny that it took place in an area that the Israeli military had designated as a safe area for hundreds of thousands of Palestinians.

“The Air Force and the Southern Command, based on accurate intelligence, attacked the area where the two main targets of the terrorist organization Hamas and other terrorists were hiding among civilians,” said a joint statement by the Israel Defense Forces and the Shin Bet intelligence agency. “The area attacked is an open and wooded area with several buildings and sheds.”

Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, said: “There is no final certainty yet that the two plans have been thwarted, but I want to assure you that one way or another we will reach the top of Hamas.”

Hamas deputy chairman Khalil al-Hayya told Al Jazeera TV that Deif was not killed in the attacks and told Netanyahu: “Deif is listening to you at this moment and is mocking your lies.”

Gaza’s Health Ministry said on Saturday that at least 90 Palestinians were killed and 289 others wounded in Israel’s attack on a refugee camp in Khan Younis. Local residents said they saw at least five “large warplanes bombing the middle of the Al Mawasi area, west of Khan Younis.”

Most of the injured were taken to Nasser Hospital. However, according to officials and doctors, the facility is “no longer operational” because the doctors are “overwhelmed by the large number of injured.”

According to Hamas, Israeli claims that the militant Palestinian group’s leaders were targeted are “false” and only serve to “justify” the attack.

The Israeli military said the attack on Deif took place in a “fenced Hamas area” and that most of the people there were militants.

Earlier, a senior Hamas official had called the Israeli accusations “nonsense.” “All the martyrs are civilians and what happened was a serious escalation of the genocidal war, backed by American support and the silence of the world,” Sami Abu Zuhri told Reuters, adding that the attack showed that Israel was not interested in a ceasefire. He did not confirm whether Deif was present.

More than 80,000 displaced people from across the Gaza Strip live in the affected Nus Street area.

Eyewitnesses reported that ambulances and civil defense teams were targeted after the attack and several Israeli warplanes “fired directly at and deliberately targeted the ambulances and rescue teams upon their arrival.”

Gaza’s Health Ministry said: “The number of casualties continues to rise as bodies are still being recovered from under the rubble.”

“So far, rescue teams are still recovering dozens of martyrs and injured from the bombing and attack areas,” said a statement from the government information office in Gaza. “This massacre comes at the expense of the lack of hospitals that can accommodate this large number of martyrs and injured, and the destruction of the health system in the Gaza Strip by the occupation.”

Deif, known as “Guest,” has not been seen in public for years and has frequently changed his location to avoid Israeli detection. The former science student was linked to Hamas from a young age and staged a series of suicide attacks on Israeli civilians in the 1990s and again a decade later.

There is speculation that Deif may have been mutilated in one of Israel’s many assassination attempts; his wife and young children were killed in an airstrike in 2014.

Israeli authorities describe Deif as “a walking dead man,” but his real name is Mohammed Diab Ibrahim al-Masri.

On October 7, Hamas released a rare voice recording of Deif announcing Operation Al-Aqsa Flood.

Saudi broadcaster Al-Hadath reported that Salama, the commander of Hamas’ Khan Younis Brigade, was killed in the attack and Deif was seriously injured.

Deif’s death could represent a significant victory for Israel and a devastating blow to Hamas. The operation could potentially give Netanyahu a leg up, as he has made clear his intention to continue the war until Hamas’ military capabilities are destroyed, with Deif’s death being a significant step in that direction.

Saturday’s attacks came as American, Egyptian and Qatari mediators were actively working to narrow the gap between Israel and Hamas under a proposed three-stage ceasefire and hostage release plan.

The talks were broken off after three days of intensive negotiations failed to produce any viable result, two Egyptian security sources said on Saturday, accusing Israel of lacking a genuine intention to reach an agreement.

The sources, who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity, said the behavior of Israeli mediators showed “internal discord.”

According to the sources, the Israeli delegation approved several of the conditions under discussion, but then came back with changes or set new conditions that risked the failure of the negotiations.

According to the sources, the mediators viewed the “contradictions, delays in responses and the introduction of new conditions contrary to previously agreed conditions” as signs that the Israeli side viewed the talks as a formality aimed at influencing public opinion.

Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh accused Netanyahu on Saturday of trying to prevent a ceasefire in the Gaza war with “heinous massacres”.

He said Hamas had “responded positively and responsibly to new proposals for a ceasefire and prisoner exchange,” but “the Israeli position taken by Netanyahu is to put obstacles in the way of an agreement,” Haniyeh said in a statement.