CNN – At least 71 Palestinians have been reported killed in an Israeli strike on a displacement camp in southern Gaza which Israel said targeted Hamas’ military chief, who was an alleged mastermind of the October 7 attacks.
Footage from Al-Mawasi, which has been designated as a safe zone for Palestinians fleeing the fighting elsewhere, shows bodies in the street and destroyed tents. “I cannot describe to you the magnitude of the tragedy,” one resident told CNN.
Mohammed Deif – the leader of Qassam Brigades, Hamas’ military wing – was the figure targeted, alongside the head of the Khan Younis brigade, Rafe Salama, an Israeli security official told CNN.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told a press conference in Tel Aviv Saturday that he was not certain whether Deif and his deputy had been killed, but said he had given his blessing for the head of Shin Bet – Israel’s security agency – to carry out the operation after being assured there were no hostages in the area.
The strike left scenes of devastation in the area, where the Gaza Health Ministry reported at least 71 people killed and nearly 300 people injured. Locals and rescue teams were seen trying to unearth several people trapped.
The Kuwait and Nasser Hospitals on the ground said they were struggling to cope with the high numbers of dead and injured civilians coming in, the ministry said.
“I was sitting in the bathroom, and before I heard explosions from the strike, the bathroom flew off,” a young boy called Hammoud told a CNN stringer on the ground. “Then, the whole area became filled with smoke, and then the shells began to fall.”
Hammoud’s young brother was killed in the strike whilst his sister is currently in hospital receiving treatment for her injuries, his family told CNN.
Another resident named Aida Hamdi told CNN: “We suddenly heard missiles hitting. I was baking bread, I took my daughter and we started running outside.
“I threw all the dough away, it was mixed with sand. We heard three hits, people around me were martyred, women, men, and children.”
Hamas denied Israeli claims it had targeted Deif and Salama, calling the killings a “horrific massacre.”
“The occupation’s claims of targeting leaders are false claims, and this is not the first time the occupation has claimed to target Palestinian leaders, only for its lies to be exposed later,” a statement read.
At least one US-made munition was used in the airstrike. In a video shared on social media, CNN identified the tail fin of a Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM), a Boeing-manufactured GPS-guided kit which can be added to so-called ‘dumb bombs’ to direct them at a specific target. Trevor Ball, a former US Army explosive ordnance disposal technician, confirmed the identification of the JDAM tail at the scene for CNN.
Similar CNN analysis has found US-made munitions were used in a strike on a school complex near Khan Younis and in other Israeli strikes on Gaza.
A shadowy figure
Israeli security and intelligence first received intelligence about a potential opportunity to strike Hamas’s top military commander in recent days, but a clear window of opportunity to strike Deif only crystallized in the last 24 hours, an Israeli official said.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, Israeli military chief of staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi and top Shin Bet officials held multiple discussions overnight to assess the viability of a strike before the green light was given, the official said.
A key focus of the discussions was assessing Israeli intelligence indicating that there were no hostages in the area, the official added, as well as the effect that carrying out such a significant strike might have on ongoing ceasefire and hostage deal negotiations.
Little is known about Deif. Thought to have been born in the 1960s, Deif is a bomb maker was behind a wave of suicide attacks in 1996 that killed 65 people in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv and other outrages intended to derail the peace process.
His full name is Mohammed Diab Ibrahim al-Masri, but he became known as El Deif (the Guest), because, for decades, he stayed in different houses every night to avoid being tracked, and killed, by Israel.
Deif has been the target of Israeli assassination attempts before. A 2014 Israel strike killed his wife, seven-month-old son and three-year-old daughter.
In May, the International Criminal Court said it was seeking arrest warrants for Deif and other senior Hamas figures, saying they had “reasonable grounds” to believe they bore responsibility for the October 7 attacks, which saw around 1,200 Israelis killed.
Israel’s campaign in Gaza – aimed at destroying Hamas and rescuing hostages still being held – has since then killed more than 38,000 people.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
