Israeli military sources are confident that Hamas’s military commander, Muhammad Deif, the mastermind behind the October 7th attack on southern Israel, was killed in Saturday’s air strike in the southern Gaza Strip.
The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) described the area targeted as a fenced-in Hamas compound on the outer edges of Al-Mawasi humanitarian zone, guarded by militants in civilian clothes. An F-35 jet, using laser-guided technology, dropped a huge bunker-busting bomb on the site after intelligence was received that Mr Deif, who has survived seven previous Israeli attempts on his life, was in the area.
More than 90 people were killed in the incident according to the Hamas-run health ministry, and Hamas officials described the attack as a massacre. Israelis claimed that many of those killed were militants.
Hamas sources claimed that Mr Deif, number two on Israel’s most-wanted list behind Hamas leader Yaha Sinwar, survived the Israeli attack but no proof was provided. “Commander Mohammed Deif is well and directly overseeing” Hamas operations, a Hamas official told the AFP news agency.
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Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) chief Ronen Bar said the attempted assassination was the result of “precise intelligence”. Speaking with top generals in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, he said 25 Hamas militants who participated in the October 7th attack were killed in Gaza over the past week.
Israel was able to confirm that Rafa’a Salama, Hamas’s Khan Yunis brigade commander, was killed during the same attack. Mr Salama was Mr Deif’s right-hand man and was also high on Israel’s most-wanted list.
His death was also confirmed on Sunday by the Saudi news site Asharq Al-Awsat, quoting Hamas sources, who said his body was recovered Saturday and immediately buried.
After conflicting reports, a senior Hamas official confirmed on Sunday that the negotiations for a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal will continue, despite Saturday’s attack.
There was speculation in Israel that if Mr Deif’s death is confirmed, the news could provide prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu with the “victory picture” he seeks to justify a ceasefire and an end to the war, which will bring Israeli hostages home. Others believe that Mr Netanyahu doesn’t want an end to the fighting because a ceasefire will likely lead to the break-up of his right-wing coalition and new elections.
Palestinians reported on Sunday that at least 13 people were killed in an Israeli strike on an Unrwa refugee agency school in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, claiming children and women were among the fatalities. The IDF claimed militants were operating from within the school premises.
According to the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry, more than 38,500 Palestinians have been killed since the war began on October 7th. Israel says 1,200 people were killed and 253 hostages seized in the surprise Hamas attack on that day. Some 116 hostages remain in Gaza and Israel has confirmed the death of 42 of them.
Humanitarian organisations described rapidly deteriorating conditions in Gaza as temperatures soared to 40 degrees, with shortages of vital supplies and limited amounts of water. Aid officials report that humanitarian trucks crossing into the coastal enclave are immediately looted with a near-total breakdown of law and order.
Four soldiers were wounded, two in serious condition, in a car-ramming attack in central Israel on Sunday. The driver, a Palestinian resident of East Jerusalem, was shot and killed by security forces after he managed to run over a soldier who was waiting by the side of the road, make a U-turn and ram into others who were standing at the bus stop on the other side of the road.
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