Gaza medics say 90 killed at tent camp by Israeli strike that IDF says targeted Hamas commander
An Israeli airstrike killed at least 90 Palestinians in a designated humanitarian zone in Gaza on Saturday, according to the enclave’s Health Ministry said, in an attack that Israel said targeted Hamas military chief Mohammed Deif.
It was unclear whether Deif was killed. “We are still checking and verifying the results of the strike,” an official for the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) told reporters.
The militant Islamist group Hamas said in a statement that Israeli claims it had targeted leaders of the group were false and aimed at justifying the attack, which was the deadliest Israeli attack in Gaza in weeks.
Displaced people sheltering in the area said their tents were torn down by the force of the strike, describing bodies and body parts strewn on the ground.
“I couldn’t even tell where I was or what was happening,” said Sheikh Youssef, a resident of Gaza City who is currently displaced in the Al-Mawasi area.
“I left the tent and looked around, all the tents were knocked down, body parts, bodies everywhere, elderly women thrown on the floor, young children in pieces,” he told Reuters.
The Israeli military said the strike against Deif also targeted Rafa Salama, the commander of Hamas’s Khan Younis Brigade, describing them as two of the masterminds of the Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel that triggered the nine-month war in Gaza.
Deif has survived seven Israeli assassination attempts, the most recent in 2021, and has topped Israel’s most wanted list for decades, held responsible for the deaths of dozens of Israelis in suicide bombings.
The Gaza Health Ministry said at least 90 Palestinians were killed in the strike and 300 were injured, the deadliest toll in weeks in the conflict-shattered enclave.
In a statement, the aid organization Al-Khair said an airstrike in Al-Mawasi, Gaza, killed one of its senior aid workers and three staffers from other aid organizations on Friday.
Al-Mawasi is a designated humanitarian area that the Israeli army has repeatedly urged Palestinians to head to after issuing evacuation orders from other areas.
Reuters footage showed ambulances racing toward the area amid clouds of smoke and dust. Displaced people, including women and children, were fleeing in panic, some holding belongings in their hands.
The Israeli military published an aerial photo of the site, which Reuters was not immediately able to verify, where it said “terrorists hid among civilians.”
Pre-war map of Gaza’s population:
“The location of the strike was an open area surrounded by trees, several buildings and sheds,” it said in a statement.
The Israeli military official said the area was not a tent complex but an operational compound run by Hamas and that several more militants were there, guarding Deif.
Hospital ‘full of patients’
Many of those wounded in the strike, including women and children, were taken to the nearby Nasser Hospital, which hospital officials said had been overwhelmed and was “no longer able to function” due to the intensity of the Israeli offensive and an acute shortage of medical supplies.
“The hospital is full of patients, it’s full of wounded, we can’t find beds for people,” said Dr. Atef al-Hout, director of the hospital, adding that it was the only one still operating in southern Gaza.
Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant was holding special consultations, his office said, in light of “developments in Gaza.”
It was unclear how the strike would affect ceasefire talks underway in Doha and Cairo.
“Maybe it’s good, maybe it’s not good. I don’t know about Mohammed Deif, I know that keeping the war is bad for all of us,” said Ayala Metzger, the daughter-in-law of an Israeli hostage who was taking part in a hostage solidarity march just outside Jerusalem on Saturday.
“We need to bring the hostages back,” she told Reuters.
“If [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu killed Mohammed Deif, then he has his picture of victory, so bring them back now.”
‘My whole family’s gone’
A senior Hamas official did not confirm whether Deif had been present in the attack on Khan Younis and called the Israeli allegations “nonsense.”
“All the martyrs are civilians, and what happened was a grave escalation of the war of genocide, backed by the American support and world silence,” Sami Abu Zuhri told Reuters, adding that the strike showed Israel was not interested in reaching a ceasefire deal.
Separately on Saturday, at least 20 Palestinians were killed in an Israeli attack on a prayer hall at a Gaza camp for displaced people in west Gaza City, Palestinian health and civil emergency officials said.
WARNING: Video contains distressing images | As Israel’s war in Gaza drags on, it’s become almost impossible for seriously sick or wounded Palestinians to get the medical care they need, especially because leaving the country is no longer a viable option.
Critics have accused Israel of committing genocide against Palestinians, a charge Israel denies. It characterizes its actions as self-defence to prevent another attack like Oct. 7, though the International Court of Justice ordered Israel in January to take action to prevent acts of genocide.
Hamas-led militants killed 1,200 people and took more than 250 hostages in the cross-border raid into southern Israel on Oct. 7, according to Israeli tallies.
Israel has retaliated with military action in Gaza that has killed more than 38,000 Palestinians, medical authorities in Gaza say.
Speaking to members of the National Security College, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he believes Hamas is close to being eliminated in Gaza, and Israel remains committed to eradicating the remains of its forces.
Witnesses said the Khan Younis attack came as a surprise as the area had been calm, adding more than one missile had been fired. Some of the wounded who were being evacuated were rescue workers, they said.
“They’re all gone, my whole family’s gone … where are my brothers? They’re all gone, they’re all gone. There’s no one left,” said one tearful woman, who did not give her name.
Rising up the Hamas ranks over 30 years, Deif developed the group’s network of tunnels and its bomb-making expertise, Hamas sources say.
In March, Israel said it killed Deif’s deputy, Marwan Issa. Hamas has not confirmed or denied his death.
Published at Sat, 13 Jul 2024 12:25:18 +0000
Biden says he’d restore Roe v. Wade at start of 2nd term if re-elected
U.S. President Joe Biden provided a brief sketch of what his first 100 days of a second Oval Office term would look like, as the veteran leader’s re-election bid continued to face headwinds Friday from a still-growing faction of Democrat voices urging him to bow out.
The 81-year-old Biden spoke at a campaign rally held at Detroit’s Renaissance High School on Friday evening, playing up his support for unions and his aim to work on behalf of working people in America.
But he also spoke about what he would do at the start of a second term — presuming he remains the Democratic nominee and then wins in November.
“The first bill I’m going to introduce will restore Roe v. Wade and make it the law of the land,” said Biden. He added that a second term of his administration would also strengthen Social Security and Medicare, raise the federal minimum wage and get key voting-related legislation passed.
His comments did not address the congressional numbers the Democrats would need in the House and Senate to achieve his legislative priorities during a second term.
During the rally, Biden took repeated aim at Donald Trump, his 78-year-old Republican rival, arguing the U.S. cannot afford another four years with his presidential predecessor at its helm.
“It’s time for us to stop treating politics like entertainment and reality TV,” said Biden. “Another four years with Donald Trump is deadly serious.”
Biden slammed Trump’s criminal conviction in a hush-money trial, statements he made on Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and his opponent’s economic record while serving in the White House.
“Do you really want to go back to the chaos of Donald Trump as president?” Biden asked the crowd at the rally.
Trump and Biden are the oldest candidates to be competing for the Oval Office. Biden is already the country’s oldest sitting president.
The state of Michigan, where Biden was campaigning Friday, has been hotly contested ground in the past two presidential elections. Trump won it by a narrow margin in 2016, while Biden took it in 2020.
Continued pressure to drop out
Biden has spent the month of July trying to deal with the fallout from a poor debate performance he had against Trump on June 27.
Yet despite media interviews, a high-profile solo news conference and outreach efforts with congressional Democrats, Biden has seen — as of Friday — at least 19 Democrat lawmakers publicly call for his exit from the presidential ballot.
Rep. Mike Levin of California said in a statement Friday that he believed “the time has come for President Biden to pass the torch.”
Prominent donors and party supporters have also put pressure on Biden to drop out in recent days.
Yet Biden received strong statements of support from two prominent Democrats on Friday — California Gov. Gavin Newsom, in a soon-to-be-broadcast CBS News Sunday Morning interview, and Rep. James Clyburn, who both said they support the incumbent president.
“I’m riding with Biden no matter which direction he goes,” Clyburn told NBC’s Today, while Newsom told Sunday Morning he’s “all in” for Biden.
In Detroit, however, Biden signalled he does not intend to step away from his re-election bid.
“I’m not going anywhere,” he said.
When the rally wrapped, a classic Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers song played: I Won’t Back Down.
Published at Sat, 13 Jul 2024 01:25:03 +0000