Hamas says pulling out of truce talks after Israeli strike in Gaza

GAZA STRIP

A Hamas official said Sunday that the group is pulling out of Gaza truce talks, following an Israeli strike that targeted the group’s commander Mohammed Deif, who was "fine" despite the attack according to another Hamas figure.

"Commander Mohammed Deif is well and directly overseeing" the operations of the Hamas military wing, the official told AFP.

Israel staged a huge bombing raid on a camp for displaced people in southern Gaza on July 13 that it said was an attempt to kill Deif.

Another senior official from the Iran-backed Islamist group, which has been fighting a nine-month-long war with Israel in the Gaza Strip, said Hamas was withdrawing from ceasefire talks because of Israeli "massacres" and the country's attitude in negotiations.

The Health Ministry in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip said at least 92 people had been killed, more than half of them women and children, and 300 wounded in a strike on the Al-Mawasi camp.

Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas's Qatar-based political chief, told international mediators of the "decision to halt negotiations due to the occupation's [Israel] lack of seriousness, continued policy of procrastination and obstruction, and the ongoing massacres against unarmed civilians,” the official said.

Talks mediated by Qatar and Egypt, with U.S. support, have for months tried but failed to bring a halt to the war in the Gaza Strip.

Al-Mawasi, where the Health Ministry said dozens had been killed, had in May been declared a safe humanitarian zone by the Israeli military and civilians ordered to evacuate to it. However, there have been multiple deadly incidents there blamed on Israeli strikes.

Philippe Lazzarini, head of the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, described the area as "a sandy 14-square-kilometre (5.4-square-mile) agricultural land, where people are left out in the open with little to no buildings or roads.”

"The claim that people in Gaza can move to 'safe' or 'humanitarian' zones is false,” said Lazzarini on social media site X.

Israel said it had targeted Deif, the head of the Al-Qassam Brigades, as well as Rafa Salama, a brigade commander, in a strike on July 13.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said late on July 13 there was "no certainty" either man had been killed in the strike.

Deif has been among Israel's most wanted men for decades and is blamed by Israeli authorities for the killings of multiple civilians and soldiers. There have been at least six previous attempts on his life.

He announced in an audio message the start of Hamas' surprise the Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel, which sparked the Gaza war, and the military has labelled him and Salama "two of the masterminds" of the attack.

Rescuers also said yesterday at least eight people were killed in three separate strikes on different parts of Gaza City.

The Israeli military, meanwhile, said operations were continuing throughout the territory, including in Gaza City and Rafah.