Dozens killed in Israeli operation to target two Hamas officials
Israeli strikes killed at least 70 people and injured hundreds more in the Al-Mawasi area west of Khan Younis Saturday, in an operation the IDF said targeted Hamas official Mohamed Deif.
Israeli strikes killed at least 90 people and injured hundreds more in the Mawasi area west of Khan Younis on Saturday, according to Palestinian health officials, in an operation the Israel Defense Forces said targeted two top Hamas officials, including Mohammed Deif, the head of Al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’ military wing.
Palestinian health officials called the attack a “massacre,” and the scale of the attack threatened to further stall progress on already-strained cease-fire talks currently underway in Cairo and Doha.
And Khalil Al-Hayya, the deputy chairman of Hamas in the Gaza Strip, dismissed reports that the strike targeted Deif as “a ridiculous justification” for targeting civilians in a statement aired on Al Jazeera.
Footage captured by Reuters showed hundreds of men, women and children running away from a large plume of smoke on the horizon. Many carried their bloodied and unconscious injured slung over their arms or on makeshift stretchers.
A burned-out vehicle following the Israeli military’s strike on Mawasi.Bashar Taleb / AFP via Getty ImagesSmoke from a flaming and blown-out vehicle fogged the air as a woman wept amid the chaos. “They’re all gone, my whole family’s gone,” she said. “Where are my brothers? They’re all gone, they’re all gone. There’s no one left.”
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