Middle East Crisis: Israel Targets Top Hamas Commander in Airstrike; Mass Casualties Reported
Here are the latest developments.
Israel attempted to kill a top Hamas military commander believed to be an architect of the Oct. 7 attack in an airstrike Saturday morning, according to seven senior Israeli officials. The Gaza authorities said that more than 70 people had been killed in the strike, which hit an area Israel had designated as a humanitarian zone.
It was not immediately clear whether the commander, Muhammad Deif, the leader of the Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s military wing, survived or was even in the area. A mysterious figure who has long been one of Israel’s most wanted men and has escaped multiple assassination attempts, Mr. Deif is considered the most senior Hamas figure in Gaza after its leader there, Yahya Sinwar.
The Israeli military and the domestic intelligence agency, the Shin Bet, issued a joint statement saying that they had struck “senior Hamas terrorists and additional terrorists,” but did not name them or say whether they had been killed.
Hamas said in a statement that Israel’s “allegations about targeting leaders are false,” and are “merely to cover up the scale of the horrific massacre.”
The strike hit inside a strip of coastal land on the Mediterranean Sea known as Mawasi that is roughly half a mile wide and nine miles long. Israel began urging Gazans to seek safety there early in the war, and thousands of displaced Palestinians live there in tents.
The military statement said that the strike had hit “an open area surrounded by trees, several buildings and sheds,” and it posted an aerial photograph of a plot of land filled with palm trees and a few buildings. Four Israeli officials said the military had targeted Mr. Deif while he was inside a fenced Hamas-run compound that was not used as a camp for displaced people.
Video from the scene of the strike appeared to corroborate parts of the military’s statement but not others.
Footage taken by Mustafa Abutaha, a professor of English, showed a large crater in a tree-lined plot of land near a four-story residential building. A high wall separated part of the plot from the road, suggesting that it was an enclosed compound. But as he filmed the video, Mr. Abutaha said the plot had housed displaced people. Shortly afterward, a second man passed in front of the camera, holding a motionless child.
Two Israeli officials said that Mr. Deif had been targeted while he was above ground, after leaving Hamas’s tunnel network under Gaza. All of the Israeli officials spoke on the condition of anonymity, because they were not authorized to speak publicly.
Here’s what else to know:
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The Israeli officials said the strikes had also targeted Rafah Salameh, the top Hamas commander in Khan Younis, who was with Mr. Deif at the time of the attack.
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The Gazan authorities said that a second, smaller strike hit the center of Khan Younis, a nearby city to the east of Mawasi.
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A senior American official said that Israel had told Washington that it targeted Mr. Deif, but the official said that neither Israel nor the United States could yet confirm his status.
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On Saturday, relatives of hostages held in Gaza were nearing the end of a four-day march between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. The marchers aimed to heighten pressure on the Israeli government to agree to a deal with Hamas that would stop the fighting in Gaza and release their relatives.
Hiba Yazbek, Aaron Boxerman and Eric Schmitt contributed reporting.
Louise Wateridge, a U.N. official, spent the afternoon at the Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, where doctors treated some of the civilians wounded by the strike. Ms. Wateridge said in a phone interview that she saw roughly five wounded children, one of whom was paralyzed from the waist down, according to doctors at the hospital.
Ms. Wateridge said that a shortage of disinfectant in Gaza meant that doctors were cleaning wounds with water alone. A fuel shortage had prevented hospital staff from powering the hospital’s washing machines and air conditioning units, Ms. Wateridge added. As a result, patients lay in the stifling heat on bloodstained mattresses without sheets, she said. “You associate hospitals with hygiene and cleanliness,” she said. “It was very far from that.”
Deaths of Hamas leaders in Israeli strikes can take weeks to confirm.
It may be some time before the fate of Muhammad Deif, the Hamas military leader targeted in an airstrike on Saturday, is known because Hamas and Israel have previously taken weeks to confirm the deaths of militant commanders killed in Israeli strikes.
Israel has made assassinating Hamas leaders a component of its strategy in Gaza since the war started last year. On Nov. 16, one month after Hamas-led fighters first stormed southern Israel, the military said it had targeted two commanders, Ahmed al-Ghandour and Aiman Siam, in a strike earlier that month in northern Gaza. But it was not until Nov. 26 that Hamas and Israel confirmed their deaths.
Similarly, Israel said on March 11 that it had targeted Marwan Issa, Mr. Deif’s deputy. On March 26, the Israeli military formally confirmed that he was killed in the strike. Hamas has yet to confirm it.
Fuel shortages in Gaza have limited the use of heavy machinery, making it harder for rescuers to sift through rubble to find and identify bodies. The strikes also sometimes maim bodies beyond recognition, making identification difficult.
Israeli officials also said on Saturday that Hamas may also be reluctant to grant Israel a propaganda victory by acknowledging the death of senior commanders.
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Gaza’s collapsing hospitals struggle to deal with the numbers of wounded in the latest strike.
The Palestinian Red Crescent Society said on Saturday that its rescue and emergency crews had evacuated more than 100 wounded people along with 23 bodies from the site of the strikes in Khan Younis. The Gaza health ministry said earlier that in total, more than 70 people were killed in the attacks.
The rescue group said that many of the wounded had been taken to nearby hospitals run by the Red Crescent.
“All the hospitals in the area are full of the wounded,” said Dr. Wahid Qudaih, the medical director of the Al-Amal Hospital in Khan Younis, adding that there were not enough beds to accommodate all of the patients.
“A large number of patients are lying on the floor while staff are dealing with critical cases and all of the medical staff and equipment and field hospitals are exhausted,” Dr. Qudaih said in a telephone interview.
The medical system in Gaza has collapsed under the weight of the war, without enough electricity, fuel or medical supplies to treat the large numbers of wounded people, which mount daily.
“It was an unusual event regarding the number of cases and the nature of injuries,” Dr. Qudaih said of Saturday’s assault. “We have some seriously wounded people who might lose their lives at any moment,” he said, adding that children were among those hurt.
A video captures casualties and damage from the Israeli strike on southern Gaza.
Video filmed by a witness to the Israeli strike on southern Gaza on Saturday showed fires and plumes of smoke in a tree-lined plot of land surrounding a residential building.
Filmed by Mustafa Abutaha, a professor of English, the video showed crowds of civilians gathered in and around a large crater in the ground, apparently searching for people buried in the churned earth. A man carrying a motionless child rushes past the camera.
Mr. Abutaha’s video — which was verified by The New York Times — matched other clips emerging from the scene, which appeared to show a major blast crater and rescue efforts at the site of the strike. Israeli military officials said the attack aimed to kill Muhammad Deif, the leader of Hamas’s armed wing, and another senior Hamas commander.
The Israeli strike devastated a plot inside Mawasi, a strip of coastal land that Israel has designated as a “safer zone” for Gazans, Mr. Abutaha said. Palestinians seeking shelter have crowded into the area, living in sprawling clusters of tents.
“I saw the rockets with my eyes,” Mr. Abutaha said in a video message. “You see this — a child, a little girl,” he added as the child was carried past. “You see the situation is very terrible.”
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Who is Muhammad Deif?
Muhammad Deif, the shadowy leader of Hamas’s military wing, was believed to be an architect of the Oct. 7 assault on southern Israel that killed about 1,200 people and ignited the nine-month-old war in Gaza. A mysterious figure who has repeatedly escaped Israeli assassination attempts, Mr. Deif has been one of Israel’s most wanted men for decades.
He is revered within some Palestinian circles for overseeing the development of Hamas’s military capabilities and has been a symbol of the group’s resilience, finding ways to survive despite being a top target of one of the most powerful militaries in the Middle East.
On Oct. 7, as Hamas launched its attack on Israeli towns and military installations, Mr. Deif released a recorded speech declaring that the group had launched its operation so “the enemy will understand that the time of their rampaging without accountability has ended.”
“Righteous fighters, this is your day to bury this criminal enemy,” he said in the speech, which was broadcast on Hamas’s Al-Aqsa TV. “Its time has finished. Kill them wherever you find them,” he added. “Remove this filth from your land and your sacred places. Fight and the angels fight with you.”
Hamas is backed by Iran and Mr. Deif supports the relationship.
He has not been seen publicly in years, and few photos of him are in the public domain. In January, the Israeli army published an image of a man it said was Mr. Deif; the picture showed him resting under a tree with a wad of cash in hand.
He is believed to be disabled, possibly missing an eye and limbs. Israel bombed his home in 2014, killing his wife and infant son.
In May, Karim Khan, the International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor, requested an arrest warrant for Mr. Deif, accusing him and two other Hamas leaders of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Mr. Deif was born in 1965 to a poor Palestinian family and grew up in the Khan Younis refugee camp near Yahya Sinwar, the leader of Hamas in Gaza, and Mohammed Dahlan, an exiled leader of the Fatah, another Palestinian faction that rivals Hamas.
“He’s a legendary figure in Hamas,” Ibrahim Madhoun, an analyst close to Hamas, said in an interview, comparing him to Ahmed Yassin, the spiritual leader and founder of Hamas. “His fingerprints are on the transformation of the Qassam Brigades from a limited number of armed cells to a formal army that has tens of thousands of fighters.”
Mr. Deif has commanded the so-called Shadow Brigade, which guards Israeli captives held by Hamas, and invested significantly in manufacturing weapons and bringing new technologies to the Qassam Brigades such as reconnaissance drones, according to Mr. Madhoun.
Israeli analysts also recognize that Mr. Deif has changed Hamas’s military arm into a more powerful and organized fighting force.
Michael Milshtein, a former Israeli intelligence officer specializing in Palestinian affairs, described Mr. Deif as one of Hamas’s most important military strategists.
“He’s the beating heart of Hamas’s military wing,” he said, noting that Mr. Deif was at the helm of a force that has elite fighters, naval commandoes and air capabilities. “He has developed a force that almost has statehood capacities.”
Acquittal for Pakistan’s Khan and Wife in Illegal Marriage Case
Former Prime Minister Imran Khan of Pakistan and his wife were acquitted on Saturday in a case that accused them of unlawful marriage, the latest in a string of legal victories for the embattled leader ousted from power two years ago.
However, he is unlikely to be immediately released from prison, where he has been held for nearly a year, as the authorities have recently suggested that he will face new charges. Earlier in the week, his prospects for bail dimmed in a case over accusations that he had incited violent riots and that his supporters had ransacked several military installations last May.
Just days before the Feb. 8 parliamentary elections, Mr. Khan and his wife, Bushra Bibi, were convicted in back-to-back cases. In the one known locally as the illegal marriage case, Mr. Khan and Ms. Bibi each received a sentence of seven years in prison. A court found them guilty of having violated Islamic law by not adhering to the required waiting period between Ms. Bibi’s divorce and her marriage to Mr. Khan.
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Ukraine Is Targeting Crimea, a Critical Base for Russia’s Invasion
In a clear night sky above the shores of Odesa, the faint glow from missiles streaks over the Black Sea.
For much of the war, it was one-way traffic, with Russia using the occupied Crimean Peninsula first as a launchpad for its full-scale invasion and then as a staging ground for routine aerial bombardments.
Ukraine, now armed with American-made precision missiles, is for the first time capable of reaching every corner of Crimea — and the missiles are increasingly flying in both directions.
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This Soccer Player Wanted to Wear Her Hijab on the Field. France Wouldn’t Let Her.
During Ramadan, as her family fasted and prayed, Lina Boussaha, a professional soccer player, eagerly tore open a package in her bedroom in France. Inside were two head scarves she had ordered, labeled Nike, and marketed as a symbol of empowerment for Muslim women in sports.
Ms. Boussaha, 25, turned pro when she was 17. Her parents are Algerian, she grew up in one of Paris’s poorest suburbs, and until that Ramadan, in 2022, had never worn a hijab outside prayers. She usually wore her heavy curls in a high ponytail.
But she had recently decided she wanted to wear a hijab regularly, even during games. And that decision put her on a journey that eventually took her from France to start her career anew in the Middle East.
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