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The Israelis wanted to bring the co-author of the October 7 massacres to justice. They’d be just as happy if they brought justice to him instead. An IDF strike on a compound in southern Gaza targeted Mohammad Deif, the top commander of Hamas’ ‘military’, as well as one of his top deputies.
Apparently, hot intel put both of them above ground, and the IDF wasted no time in taking action:
Mohammad Deif, the leader of the Izzadin al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s military wing, was targeted in an airstrike in the Khan Yunis area of southern Gaza, Israel’s Army Radio reported on Saturday.
A senior source noted that there was a high likelihood that Deif was killed in the strike, but that confirmation was, as of yet, forthcoming, Israeli state broadcaster KAN reported.
In a joint IDF and ISA activity, the IDF’s Southern Command and the Israeli air force struck an area where two senior Hamas terrorists and additional terrorists were hiding among civilians, the IDF later reported. The location of the strike was an open area surrounded by trees, several buildings, and sheds.
Israeli media reported that Rafa Salama, the commander of Hamas’s Khan Yunis Brigade, was also a target of the Israeli strike. The Saudi news outlet, Al Hadath, later reported that Salama had been killed.
Hamas claimed afterward that the strike targeted a nearby refugee camp, accusing the Israelis of an act of « genocide. » Casualties — according to Hamas — are over 70 dead and nearly 300 injured, all of them supposedly civilians. The Israelis acknowledge some civilian deaths in the strike, but claims that most of those killed were Hamas terrorists working under Deif and Salama.
Furthermore, the IDF claimed that the strike targeted a building outside the camp, one used by Hamas for command-and-control functions within a « civilian environment »:
Al-Mawasi is designated by Israel as a humanitarian zone.
