BTN News: Hamas announced on Sunday that ceasefire negotiations in Gaza are still ongoing and assured that their military chief is in good health. This statement comes a day after Israeli forces targeted Mohammed Deif with a massive airstrike, which, according to officials, resulted in at least 90 deaths, including children.
The status of Mohammed Deif, the Palestinian militant group’s top military leader, remains unclear after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu admitted on Saturday night that there is “still no absolute certainty” about Deif’s demise.
Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi, the commander of the Israeli army, informed reporters that Israel had attacked a compound where Deif was allegedly hiding. However, he noted, “It is still too early to know the results of the attack, which Hamas is trying to conceal.”
Hamas representatives have not provided any evidence to support their claims about the health of Deif, who orchestrated the October 7 attack last year, triggering the current conflict.
The Israeli military reported on Sunday that Rafat Salama, a Hamas commander described as one of Deif’s closest associates, was killed in Saturday’s airstrike. Salama led the Khan Younis Brigade of Hamas. The statement did not provide any updates on Deif, who has long been at the top of Israel’s most-wanted list and lives in hiding.
Hamas dismissed the notion that the mediated talks had been suspended following the airstrike. Spokesperson Jihad Taha stated, “There is no doubt that the horrific massacres will affect any negotiation attempts,” but he added, “Efforts and mediators’ endeavors are ongoing.”
The potential death of Deif would be a significant blow to Hamas and a substantial victory for Israel. Netanyahu asserted that all Hamas leaders are “marked for death,” suggesting that eliminating them would push Hamas towards accepting a ceasefire.
Despite the bombing, Hamas political officials maintained that communication channels between the group’s leadership inside and outside Gaza remain open. Eyewitnesses reported that the strike occurred in an area designated by Israel as safe for hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians. Israeli forces did not confirm this.
On Sunday, survivors expressed their anger over the attack, which happened without warning in a supposedly safe area.
“I heard the first impact, and my son came running, screaming ‘Daddy, daddy’ and sheltered with me,” said Mahmoud Abu Yaseen, who clung to his children. He later woke up in a hospital to find that one of his sons had died. The family has been displaced five times since the war began. “Where are we supposed to go?” he asked.
A United Nations official described total chaos at Nasser Hospital, where victims were treated on blood-stained floors with limited supplies.
“I witnessed one of the most terrible scenes I’ve seen in my nine months in Gaza,” said Scott Anderson in a statement. “I saw young children, double amputees. Children paralyzed without receiving treatment and others separated from their parents.” He added that restrictions on humanitarian aid to Gaza are hampering efforts to provide medical care and other assistance.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant praised the pilots involved in the airstrike on Sunday, stating that Hamas is being eroded daily, with no capacity to rearm or “attend to their wounded.”
At least 300 people were injured in the airstrike, one of the deadliest in the nine-month war sparked by Hamas’s October 7 attack on southern Israel. That attack killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and left over 200 as hostages.
More than 38,400 people in Gaza have died in the subsequent Israeli offensive, according to the territory’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between combatants and civilians.
On Sunday, an Israeli airstrike in Nuseirat, central Gaza, killed at least 14 people near a school entrance, according to AP journalists at Al-Awda Hospital. Among the 15 injured were children. The Israeli military said it targeted “terrorists” operating in an area near a school managed by the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.
“They are bombing everything,” said displaced Palestinian Um Fadi Al-Zeer.
Also on Sunday, police reported that a Palestinian resident of East Jerusalem carried out a vehicle attack in central Israel, injuring four Israelis, two of them critically. Israeli border police shot and killed the attacker, who had driven into people waiting at two bus stops on a busy highway. The Israeli army stated that four of its members were injured, two seriously.
Israeli Police Commissioner Kobi Shabtai noted that such attacks are often “provoked” by events like Saturday’s airstrike in Gaza.
