Israel has announced that a Hamas commander was killed in Saturday\u2019s strike on southern Gaza, but the fate of the major target, Hamas military chief Mohammed Deif, remains uncertain. <\/p>\n
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in a statement on Sunday that Rafe Salama, the head of the Khan Younis brigade and Deif\u2019s deputy, was \u201celiminated\u201d in the attack. <\/p>\n
According to the statement, Salama was \u201cone of the closest associates\u201d of Deif, as well as \u201cone of the masterminds\u201d of Hamas\u2019 attack on October 7. <\/p>\n
It remains unclear if Deif himself died in Saturday\u2019s strike. The Israeli military is verifying whether he was killed while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also acknowledged it is uncertain whether he died. <\/p>\n
The Ministry of Health in Gaza said the strike killed at least 90 Palestinians and injured 300 others in Al-Mawasi, a designated humanitarian zone. <\/p>\n
The UN\u2019s Scott Anderson described what he saw at a nearby hospital in the aftermath of the strikes as \u201cthe most horrific scenes I have seen in my nine months in Gaza.\u201d <\/p>\n
An elusive and powerful figure, Deif is understood to be one of the architects behind the October 7 attacks. He has led the Palestinian militant group\u2019s armed wing for more than two decades. <\/p>\n
If his death is confirmed, Deif would be the highest profile Hamas leader killed since the war in Gaza began nine months ago. Israel has been seeking to dismantle Hamas following the October 7 attacks but with fighting ongoing and senior Hamas figures at large, that goal has seemed distant. <\/p>\n
Israeli intelligence services said this past week they killed a total of 25 Hamas operatives involved in the October 7 attacks. <\/p>\n
Ronen Bar, the head of Israel\u2019s intelligence agency, the Shin Bet announced the figure during a meeting with commanders from the IDF\u2019s Southern Command and 162 Division held in Rafah on Saturday. Bar commended the results of the Shin Bet\u2019s \u201cintensified activity\u201d within Gaza. <\/p>\n
Meanwhile, a fresh Israeli airstrike that hit a UN agency school in a camp for displaced people in central Gaza on Sunday has killed at least 15 and injured more than 100 others, according to the Ministry of Health in Gaza and officials at a nearby hospital. <\/p>\n
Video from the scene in Al-Nuseirat camp shows bodies and injured people \u2014 some bleeding and covered in rubble \u2014 being rushed to ambulances. <\/p>\n
A statement from the IDF on Sunday said the Israeli Air Force struck \u201ca number of terrorists\u201d who were operating in the area of the school in Nuseirat. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Israel has announced that a Hamas commander was killed in Saturday\u2019s strike on southern Gaza, but the fate of the major target, Hamas military chief Mohammed Deif, remains uncertain. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in a statement on Sunday that Rafe Salama, the head of the Khan Younis brigade and Deif\u2019s deputy, was \u201celiminated\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5062,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-5061","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5061","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5061"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5061\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5062"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5061"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5061"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5061"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}