An Israeli airstrike killed at least 90 Palestinians in Gaza on Saturday, the enclave’s health ministry said, in an attack that Israel said targeted Hamas military chief Mohammed Deif.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu late Saturday said it remained unclear whether Deif and another Hamas commander had been killed in the strike and promised to continue to target Hamas leadership, according to media reports. Netayahu said more military pressure on Hamas would improve chances of a hostage deal, even as three days of cease-fire talks separately stalled on Saturday.
“There still isn’t absolute certainty” that Deif and a second commander, Rafa Salama, were killed in the attack in a designated humanitarian zone in the Gaza Strip, Netanyahu said.
“Either way, we will get to the whole of the leadership of Hamas,” Netanyahu told a news conference.
Hamas rejected the claim that Deif was in the area, saying “these false claims are merely a cover-up for the scale of the horrific massacre.” The strike took place in an area Israel’s military had designated as safe for hundreds of thousands of Palestinians.
Deif and Hamas’ top official in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, are believed by Israel to be the chief architects of the Oct. 7 attack that killed some 1,200 people in southern Israel and triggered the Israel-Hamas war.
Palestinian health officials said the strike killed at least 90 Palestinians and wounded as many as 300 in the designated humanitarian zone of Al Mawasi, in the heaviest death toll in weeks.
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