Israel targets Hamas commander in airstrikes that kill 90 Palestinians

TEL AVIV — Powerful Israeli airstrikes killed 90 Palestinians and wounded 300 Saturday in southern Gaza, officials said. Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu said he authorized the strike against the head of the Hamas military wing, Mohammed Deif, but acknowledged the fate of the militant leader was not immediately clear.

The Israelis bombed the city of Khan Younis and the nearby costal area of al-Muwasi, which has been designated a humanitarian safe zone by the Israeli military. Thousands of displaced Palestinians have sought shelter there after being displaced multiple times in the past nine months of war.

Many of those killed and wounded at the two locations were civilians, according to witnesses and the Gaza Health Ministry, which provided the casualty figures. This was the latest — and one of the deadliest — in a series of ongoing Israeli air operations directed at Hamas, but which have also inflicted heavy civilian casualties.

Shortly after the strike, reports began circulating that the attack was aimed at Deif, a shadowy figure who has led the military arm of Hamas for more than two decades and has survived multiple Israeli attempts to kill him.

In a briefing, an Israeli military official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the attack targeted Deif, as well as another senior Hamas commander, Rafah Salameh. The official added that the military struck a Hamas "operational compound" that was surrounded by trees, small buildings and sheds, which provided cover and made it difficult to surveil.

Netanyahu spoke in a televised news conference on Saturday night, saying he approved the strike, but adding that it was "not absolutely certain" that Deif was killed. He did not provide additional details.

Hamas said in a statement that Israel was making "false claims merely to cover up the extent of the horrific massacre." The statement did not mention Deif.

The two top Hamas figures in Gaza are Yahya Sinwar, the group's political leader in the territory, and Deif, who runs the military wing, the al-Qassam Brigades.

Israel says these are the two Hamas leaders most responsible for orchestrating the Oct. 7 assault on southern Israel that killed some 1,200 people and took more than 200 hostages. That attack ignited the current war in Gaza in which more than 38,000 Palestinians have been killed, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.

Shortly after the October attack, a Hamas TV channel released a recording claiming to show Deif. "Enough is enough," the figure in the video said. He appeared only as a silhouette.

While Sinwar appeared publicly before Oct. 7, Deif has remained out of sight for decades. He was jailed by Israel for a little over a year in 1989-90, but was released. He has run the Hamas military wing since 2002, when his predecessor was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza City.

Back then, Deif was known as a master bomb-maker who provided the arsenal for Hamas' suicide bombing campaign. He's also credited for helping develop the Hamas rockets, which can now reach all the way from Gaza to Tel Aviv.

Israel has tried to kill him many times and he has reportedly suffered numerous injuries, including the loss of an eye. His wife and two of the couple's small children were killed in a 2014 airstrike intended for Deif in Gaza.

His nom de guerre "Deif" means "guest" in Arabic, referring to the widely held belief that he never stays in one place for long, always changing locations in an attempt to stay a step ahead of the Israelis.