Israel says it is “not certain” it can kill Hamas leader Mohammed Deif. Officials said Saturday's attack on Gaza killed at least 90 people in a refugee camp.
The Israeli military said they targeted Daif and Rafi Salama, battalion commanders. They were described as the masterminds of the October 7 massacre that sparked the war between Israel and Hamas. At this point, the war continued into the tenth month.
But the fate of the two men is unclear, according to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who said late Saturday she was “not sure” whether either man was killed in the attack.
An attack on the Mawasi refugee camp, which Israel has designated a “safe zone” where hundreds of thousands of people have taken refuge, has caused widespread casualties. It has drawn condemnation from governments across the region.
“Such crimes cannot be tolerated, regardless of their cause,” the Egyptian Foreign Ministry said.
The Hamas-ruled Gaza Health Ministry said at least 90 people, half of them women and children, were killed and more than 300 injured in the attack.
The Israeli army claims it targeted the guest. The area where the attack took place was open. Surrounded by trees, various buildings and sheds. It's not a large group of tents. But it's in a fenced area.
However, Hamas rejected the Israeli statement, claiming that it was aimed at attacking the guest and that Israel deliberately concealed a horrific massacre.
North of there, heavy fighting has been raging for weeks in and around Gaza City. The civil defense office said Saturday that at least 20 civilians were killed in the attack on the Shati refugee camp.
In May, Israel advised Palestinians to move to designated humanitarian areas in the Al-Mawasi refugee camp while Israeli occupation forces moved into the nearby city of Rafah.
Since then, Israel has been accused of killing civilians in attacks in or near it, including in May, which was blamed for a fire that engulfed a group of refugee tents and killed 45 people.
Philippe Lazzarini, director of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), defined the area as agricultural land with a radius of 14 square kilometres where people live in the open air with almost no buildings or roads. “The claim of the people of Gaza that they can move to a safe and humanitarian area is a lie.”
The UN Human Rights Commission said in a statement that Israel continues to use weapons that affect wide areas in densely populated civilian areas. This indicates their ignorance of the safety of civilians.
The attack came despite anti-Israel demonstrators protesting again on Saturday to demand a deal to rescue hostages still being held in Gaza.
The war between the two sides began. Hamas fighters in Gaza attacked southern Israel on October 7, killing at least 1,195 people, most of them civilians. They took 251 hostages, 116 of whom are still in Gaza. But the Israeli military expects that, of those, 42 may have died.
Israel responded with a military offensive. At least 38,443 people were killed in Gaza, most of them civilians.
The war has raised tensions across the region. Israel has been in near-daily contact with Hezbollah, a Hamas ally in Lebanon, and Iranian-backed Houthi rebels have launched a seaborne offensive in what they say is a show of solidarity with the people of Gaza.
Yahya Sari, the military spokesman for the Houthis, wrote on the X platform following an attack targeting Al-Mawasi and that the group will not hesitate to carry out military action until the invaders stop.
(Source: Agence France-Presse)