GAZA: A Hamas official on Sunday said 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.
Israel staged a huge bombing raid on a camp for displaced people in southern Gaza on Saturday that it said was an attempt to kill Deif.
A senior official from the Palestinian group, which has been fighting a nine-month-long war with Israel in the Gaza Strip, said that Hamas movement 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 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 US 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 UN 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.
Separately on Sunday, rescuers said 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.
October 7 attack resulted in the deaths of 1,195 people, according to a tally based on Israeli figures.
The Palestinian groups also seized 251 captives, 116 of whom remain in Gaza, including 42 the military says are dead. Israel responded with a military offensive that has killed at least 38,443 people in Gaza, mostly civilians, according to a toll from the Gaza health ministry.
The deaths in the camp in Al-Mawasi drew condemnation from governments across the region, with Egypt's foreign ministry saying such "crimes... cannot be accepted under any justification whatsoever". — AFP
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