Hamas says military chief survived Israeli attack

MUWASI, Gaza Strip – Hamas said on Sunday that ceasefire negotiations in Gaza were continuing and that the group’s military commander was in good health, a day after the Israeli military attacked Mohammed Deif with a massive airstrike that , according to local health authorities, killed at least 90 people, including children.

Deif’s condition remained unclear after the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Saturday night that “there is still no absolute certainty” that he was killed. Hamas representatives presented no evidence to support their claim about the health of one of the main architects of the October 7 attack that triggered the war.

The Israeli military announced on Sunday that Rafa Salama, a Hamas commander described as one of Deif’s closest associates, was killed in Saturday’s attack. Salama commanded Hamas’ Khan Younis brigade. The statement did not provide any updates on Deif, who has long been at the top of Israel’s most wanted list and has been in hiding for years.

Hamas rejected the idea that mediated ceasefire discussions had been suspended after the attack. Spokesman Jihad Taha said “there is no doubt that the horrific massacres will have an impact on any efforts at negotiations,” but added that “mediators’ efforts and efforts remain ongoing.”

Deif’s assassination would mark the highest-profile assassination of any Hamas leader by Israel since the start of the war. It would be a major victory for Israel and a deep psychological blow for the militant group. Netanyahu said all Hamas leaders are “marked for death” and claimed that killing them would bring Hamas closer to accepting a ceasefire agreement.

Hamas political officials insisted that communication channels remained functional between the leadership inside and outside Gaza following the attack in the territory’s south. Witnesses said the incident occurred in an area that Israel has designated as safe for hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians. The Israeli military has not confirmed this.

On Sunday, some survivors were furious that the attack on Deif occurred without warning in an area they were told was safe.

“I heard the first blow and my son came screaming, ‘Daddy, daddy’ and hid with me,” said Mahmoud Abu Yaseen, who grabbed his children but later woke up in the hospital to find his son had died. The family had already been displaced five times since the start of the war. “Where are we going?” he asked.

A United Nations official described total chaos at the Nasser hospital, where victims were taken, many of them treated on blood-stained floors and with 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 children who were double amputees, children who were paralyzed and unable to receive treatment, and others who were separated from their parents.” He said restrictions on humanitarian aid to Gaza hamper efforts to provide necessary medical and other care.

On Sunday, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant praised the pilots who carried out the attack and said that Hamas is being worn down every day, without the capacity to arm itself, organize itself or “take care of the wounded”.

At least 300 people were injured in the attack, one of the deadliest in the nine-month war triggered by Hamas’ Oct. 7 assault on southern Israel that killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took more than 200 hostages.

More than 38,400 people in Gaza have been killed in Israeli ground offensives and bombings since then, according to the territory’s Health Ministry. The ministry does not distinguish between combatants and civilians in its count.

On Sunday, an Israeli attack in Nuseirat, in central Gaza, killed at least 14 people at the gate of a school used as a shelter for displaced people, according to an Associated Press journalist who visited two hospitals. Children were among the other 15 injured. The Israeli military, in a statement, said it attacked “terrorists” operating in the area of ​​a school run by the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.

Also on Sunday, police said a Palestinian resident of East Jerusalem carried out a car attack in central Israel that injured four Israelis, two of them seriously. Israeli border police present at the scene shot dead the attacker after he struck people waiting at two bus stops along a busy road. Israel’s military said four of its soldiers were injured, two of them seriously.

Israeli Police Commissioner Kobi Shabtai said such attacks were often “triggered” by events such as Saturday’s airstrike in Gaza.