MUWASI, Gaza Strip (AP) — Hamas said on Sunday that Gaza Ceasefire talks continue and group’s military commander is in good health, a day after Israeli military launched attack Mohammed Deif immediately huge air raid At least 90 people, including children, have died, local health officials said.
Deif’s condition remained uncertain after the Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Saturday night that “there is still no absolute certainty” that he had been killed. Hamas officials offered no evidence to support their claim about the health of a key architect of the October 7 attack that sparked the war.
The Israeli military said Sunday that Rafa Salama, a Hamas commander it described as one of Deif’s closest associates, had been killed in Saturday’s attack. Salama commanded Hamas’ Khan Younis brigade. The statement gave no update on Deif, who has long topped Israel’s most wanted list and has been in hiding for years.
Hamas rejected the idea that brokered ceasefire talks had been suspended after the strike. Spokesman Jihad Taha said “there is no doubt that the horrific massacres will affect all efforts in the negotiations,” but added that “the efforts and efforts of the mediators are still ongoing.”
Deif’s killing would be Israel’s highest-profile assassination of a Hamas leader since the war began. It would be both a huge victory for Israel and a deep psychological blow to the militant group. Netanyahu said all Hamas leaders were “marked for death” and claimed that killing them would bring Hamas closer to accepting a ceasefire deal.
Hamas political officials insisted that communication channels between leaders inside and outside Gaza were still functional after the attack in the south of the territory. Witnesses said it happened in an area that Israel had designated as safe for hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians. The Israeli military would not confirm that.
On Sunday, some survivors were angry that the attack on Deif came unexpectedly, in an area they had heard was safe.
“Where are we going to go?” asked Mahmoud Abu Yaseen, who said he heard two bangs and hugged his children, and when he woke up in the hospital he found his son dead. The family had been displaced five times since the war began, he said.
Another 300 people were wounded in the attack, one of the deadliest in the nine-month war that began after Hamas launched an Oct. 7 assault on southern Israel that killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took more than 200 hostages.
According to Israeli authorities, more than 38,400 people have been killed in Gaza since then in Israeli ground offensives and bombardments. Ministry of HealthThe ministry makes no distinction between fighters and civilians in its count.
A United Nations official described total chaos at Nasser Hospital, where victims of Saturday’s strike were being taken. Many were being treated on blood-stained floors and there were few supplies available.
“I witnessed some of the most horrific scenes I have seen in my nine months in Gaza,” Scott Anderson said in a statement. “I saw toddlers who had been amputated twice, children who were paralyzed and unable to receive treatment, and others who had been separated from their parents. I also saw mothers and fathers who were unsure whether their children were alive.” He said restrictions on humanitarian aid to Gaza were hampering efforts to provide needed medical and other care.
Also on Sunday, police reported that a Palestinian resident of East Jerusalem carried out a car-ramming attack in central Israel, wounding four Israelis, two of them seriously. Israeli Border Police at the scene shot dead the attacker after he hit people waiting at two bus stops along a busy road. Israeli police commissioner Kobi Shabtai said the attacks are often “triggered” by events like Saturday’s airstrike in Gaza.
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Abby Sewell, an Associated Press editor in Beirut, contributed to this report.
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