The IDF published the exact location on Al Mawasi camp, west of Khan Younis in the Gaza Strip which was hit by Israel in the context of a military operation targeting Hamas commander Mohammed Deif.

As the before and after photo shows, it was a very well fenced property with a large building in the middle.

It is not clear at this time whether Dave and Rafa Salama, the Brigade commander who was also targeted, were killed.

Hamas denies, while Israel expresses optimism that the operation was successful.

Hamas military leader Mohammed Dayf was not killed by the Israeli strike in the Khan Younis area of ​​the southern Gaza Strip, the organization’s deputy leader Khalil Al Hayya told Al Jazeera.

“We tell Netanyahu that Mohamed Deif is listening to you right now and mocking your lies,” Al Hayya said.

At the same time, the WSJ points out that among the confirmed dead are Dave’s bodyguards.

Netanyahu

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said tonight that there is “no certainty” whether the head of Hamas’s military wing, Mohammad Deif, and his deputy were killed by an Israeli strike in the Gaza Strip. But he pledged to continue pursuing Israel’s war aims to the end.

“The State of Israel today launched an attack on Gaza in an attempt to kill Mohamed Deif and his deputy Rafa Salama. It is not certain that one or the other was killed,” he said at a televised press conference.

“Either way, we will get to the entire leadership of Hamas,” he added.

Netanyahu also argued that the chances of reaching an agreement on the return of the Israeli hostages would improve if military pressure on Hamas increased.

Abbas

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas tonight claimed Israel and the US were responsible for an attack that killed dozens of people in the Gaza Strip today, but also blamed Hamas for the ongoing war in the Palestinian enclave.

The statement indicates growing tension between Abbas’s Fatah and the Islamist Hamas, which in turn accuses the Palestinian president of siding with Israel.

“The Palestinian presidency condemns the massacre and holds the Israeli government responsible, as well as the United States, which provides all kinds of support to the occupation (force) and its crimes,” the statement issued by Abbas’s office reads.

But Abbas, who retains limited powers in the occupied West Bank, also placed some blame on Hamas, whose attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, sparked the war in Gaza. “The presidency sees that by avoiding national unity and providing pretexts to the occupying state, the Hamas movement bears legal, moral and political responsibility for the continuation of Israel’s genocidal war on the Gaza Strip,” the statement added.

Sami Abu Zohri, a senior Hamas official, told Reuters that Abbas’s announcement meant the Palestinian Authority “chose to be in the same trench as the occupation.” “Such an attitude will not succeed in blackmailing the resistance or pressuring it,” he added.

Another Hamas official, Bassem Naim, who participated in earlier reconciliation talks with Fatah, said Abbas was to blame for their failure. Abbas’s comments make him “a partner of the Zionist enemy and its crimes not only in Gaza but in all the Palestinian territories,” Naim said.

Ninety dead

The Hamas Health Ministry announced this evening that 90 Palestinians were killed by the Israeli strike on the Al Mawasi displaced persons camp in the southern Gaza Strip.

“I didn’t understand where I was or what was going onsaid Sheikh Youssef, a resident of Gaza City who now lives in displacement in Al Mawasi.

“I left my tent and took a look around. All the tents had fallen, human limbs, corpses everywhere, old women on the ground, little children torn to pieces“, he described to the Reuters agency.

In its statement, the ministry denounces the “heinous massacre on behalf of the occupier” (Israel’s p.s.) noting that the dead are 90 and the injured 300.

“Half of the victims were women and childrenHamas added.

Salama is also a target

According to the Israeli military, in addition to Daif, Rafa Salama, the commander of Hamas’s Khan Younis Brigade, was also targeted.

The two, Israel says, masterminded the October 7, 2023, attack in southern Israel.

Def has survived seven attempts by Israel to kill him – the most recent in 2021 – and, for decades, his name has been at the top of the Israeli authorities’ most wanted list.

He is considered responsible for the deaths of dozens of Israelis in suicide bombings.

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