GAZA: Gaza's health ministry said dozens were killed on Saturday in an Israeli strike on a displacement camp in an area where Israel said it targeted Hamas group military.
It is the latest mass-casualty incident in the Al Mawasi area, where many Palestinians had fled, and came as international mediators pushed on with efforts to halt the nine-month war.
A statement from the Gaza health ministry said there were more than "71 martyrs" and 289 people wounded in what it called a "brutal massacre by the occupation", a reference to Israel, at Al Mawasi camp.
The Israeli military said it had targeted Deif and Rafa Salama, a brigade commander, calling them "two of the masterminds of the October 7 attack" which sparked the Gaza war.
"The area that was struck is an open area, surrounded by trees, several buildings and sheds. It was not a tent complex, but an operational compound," it said.
A Hamas statement called the claim that Deif had been targeted "false allegations" intended "to cover up the magnitude of the horrific massacre".
Footage showed sirens wailing and smoke rising in the distance as men used blankets to collect victims. Some were clearly beyond help and lay dead on the road.
Israel in May had told Palestinians in the Rafah area to move to a designated humanitarian area in Al Mawasi on the coast as troops moved in to the southern city of Rafah near the Egyptian border.
There has been widespread global outrage over the war's civilian toll. In late June, the International Committee of the Red Cross said 22 people were killed by shelling that damaged its Gaza office, which is surrounded by hundreds of displaced people who sought shelter there.
UN chief Antonio Guterres appealed to donor governments on Friday to resume funding the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, warning there was no alternative to UNRWA as a conduit for aid to Gazans despite longstanding Israeli opposition to the agency.
"Just when we thought it couldn't get any worse in Gaza — somehow, appallingly, civilians are being pushed into ever deeper circles of hell," he said.
UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini said later that the agency now had enough funds to operate through September.
Israel and Palestinian Hamas have engaged in months of indirect talks via Qatari, US and Egyptian mediators to reach a still elusive truce and captives release deal.
Talks took place in Doha on Wednesday, while Israel said it was sending a delegation to Cairo on Thursday evening for further negotiations. — AFP
Oman Observer is now on the WhatsApp channel. Click here
