Israel said it targeted Hamas’ shadowy military commander in a massive strike Saturday in the crowded southern Gaza Strip that killed at least 71 people, according to local health officials. Hamas immediately rejected the claim that Mohammed Deif was in the area.

Israeli officials confirmed that Deif and a second Hamas commander, Rafa Salama, were the targets. It was not immediately known whether Deif was among the dead. A military official later said they were “still checking and verifying the result of the strike," and did not deny it took place in an area the Israeli military had designated as safe for hundreds of thousands of Palestinians.

Deif and Hamas’ top official in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, are believed by Israel to be the chief architects of the Oct. 7 attack that killed some 1,200 people in southern Israel and triggered the Israel-Hamas war. Not seen in public for years, Deif has long topped Israel’s most-wanted list and is believed to have escaped multiple Israeli assassination attempts. On Oct. 7, Hamas issued a rare voice recording of Deif announcing the “Al Aqsa Flood” operation.

The strike came at a delicate time in cease-fire efforts. Deif's death would hand Israel a major victory and deal a painful psychological blow to Hamas. It also could give Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a possible opening. He has said he will not end the war until Hamas’ military capabilities are destroyed, and Deif’s death would be a significant step in that direction.

But Deif's killing could also risk encouraging Hamas to harden its positions in talks. He has been in hiding for more than two decades and is believed to be paralyzed. One of the only known images of him is a 30-year-old ID photo released by Israel. Even in Gaza, only a handful of people would recognize him.

In a statement, Hamas denied that Deif had been in the area. “These false claims are merely a cover-up for the scale of the horrific massacre,” it said.

The Gaza Health Ministry reported 71 dead and said at least 289 others were injured in the attack — one of the war's deadliest — and that many dead and injured were taken to overwhelmed Nasser Hospital nearby. There, Associated Press journalists counted over 40 bodies. Witnesses described an attack that included several strikes.

“A number of victims are still under the rubble and on the roads, and ambulance and civil defense crews are unable to reach them," the Health Ministry said.

The Israeli military asserted that “additional terrorists hid among civilians" and described the location as an area surrounded by trees and several buildings. An Israeli official said the strike was carried out in a fenced area of Khan Younis that was run by Hamas, saying it was not a tent complex but an operational compound. The official described the strike as precise and said it was estimated that many casualties were “terrorists.”

Witnesses said the strike landed inside Muwasi, the Israeli-designated safe zone that stretches from northern Rafah to Khan Younis. The coastal strip is where hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians have fled in search of safety, sheltering mostly in sweltering, makeshift tents and with little services.

Footage of the aftermath showed a huge crater, charred tents, burnt-out cars and household belongings scattered. Victims were carried on the hoods and in the hatchbacks of cars, and on donkey carts and carpets.

“Children were all martyred here. We collected their pieces with our hands," said one Palestinian man who did not give his name. He estimated there were seven or eight missiles and asserted that first responders were targeted as well.

At the hospital, a baby in a pink shirt, her face covered with sand, cried while receiving first aid. A small boy lay motionless at the other end of the bed, one shoe gone. Victims lay amid spattered blood on the floor, and bodies were wrapped in white plastic scrawled in marker with their names.

Neighboring Egypt, a mediator in cease-fire talks, condemned the strike. “These ongoing violations against Palestinian citizens add serious complications to the ability of the efforts currently being made to reach calm and a cease-fire,” its Foreign Ministry said in a statement. It also criticized the “shameful silence and lack of action from the international community.”

Egyptian, Qatari and U.S. mediators have been pushing to narrow gaps between Israel and Hamas over a proposed deal for a three-phase cease-fire and hostage release plan in Gaza.

The U.S.-backed proposal calls for an initial cease-fire with a limited hostage release and the withdrawal of Israeli troops from populated areas in Gaza. At the same time, the two sides will negotiate terms of the second phase, which is supposed to bring a full hostage release in return for a permanent cease-fire and complete Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.

Israel launched its campaign in Gaza after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack in which militants stormed into southern Israel and abducted about 250 people.

Since then, Israeli ground offensives and bombardments have killed more than 38,400 people in Gaza and wounded more than 88,000, according to the territory’s Health Ministry. The ministry does not distinguish between combatants and civilians in its count.

More than 80% of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been driven from their homes, and most are now crowded into squalid tent camps, facing widespread hunger.

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'No safe place': Gazans race to collect wounded after Israeli strike

Israel had declared Al-Mawasi a safe zone as it pushed into Rafah near the Egyptian border, but on Saturday Palestinians raced to collect the dozens of casualties from the army's latest strike.

Sirens wailed and women screamed as children were pulled out of the wreckage and rushed to nearby hospitals following the strike on a displacement camp.

"What did we do? What did we do? We were only sitting near the beach," one woman from the coastal town cried.

The Hamas-run territory's health ministry said more than 71 people were killed and 289 people wounded in what it called a "massacre" at Al-Mawasi camp.

AFP could not independently confirm the toll.

The Israeli military said the attack targeted Hamas military strategist Mohammed Deif and Rafa Salama, a brigade commander, describing the pair as "two of the masterminds of the October 7 massacre" which set off the war in Gaza.

The camp, near the city of Khan Yunis, was designated a humanitarian area after Israel in May ordered civilians to evacuate other parts of the Gaza Strip.

Hundreds of thousands of displaced people were sheltering there, according to UK-based Medical Aid for Palestinians, which operates health sites in the area.

"We have been warning for months that there is no safe place for anyone in Gaza amid Israel's military bombardment," the charity said in a statement.

Black smoke billowed behind a wide, ash-strewn street in Al-Mawasi where bodies lay in pools of blood, some covered by sheets.

Men struggling to carry the wounded wove through those beyond help to get to ambulances waiting with doors open. Others were piled onto donkey-pulled carts.

Despite the Nasser Hospital reporting it was at full-capacity, ambulances kept arriving with wounded on orange stretchers, including a man with a towel tied to his leg as a makeshift tourniquet.

A woman outside the hospital could be head pleading: "Please enough, enough for God sake."

- 'No warning' -

The Israeli military said Saturday's offensive "struck an open area" that "was not a tent complex but an operational compound".

"According to our information, only Hamas terrorists were present and there were no civilians," it said.

According to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office, he discussed the strike on Al-Mawasi with security and military officials as part of his goal "to eliminate senior Hamas officials".

Hamas called the claim that Deif had been targeted "false allegations" intended "to cover up the magnitude of the horrific massacre".

Gaza's civil defence agency said heavy shelling was preventing its teams from reaching the "many bodies" scattered in the streets.

Mahmud Abu Akar described missiles raining down seemingly endlessly.

"Every time people tried to get close to rescue others, they would strike," he said.

"There was no warning at all, it happened all of a sudden."

There have been previous reports of the camp coming under fire, including in June when the International Committee of the Red Cross said 22 people were killed by shelling that damaged its office.

An Israeli military spokesman said there was "no indication" of an Israeli strike in the Al-Mawasi humanitarian area at that time.

Saturday's strike came on the 281st day of the war that was unleashed by Hamas's October 7 attacks on Israel, which resulted in 1,195 deaths, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.

The militants also seized 251 hostages, 116 of whom remain in Gaza, including 42 the military says are dead.

Israel's military reprisal has killed at least 38,443 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to data from Gaza's health ministry.

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Palestinian medics reported that at least 71 people have been killed and hundreds injured in an Israeli airstrike on a refugee camp in southern Gaza.

The Hamas-controlled health authorities in Gaza said on Saturday that at least 289 people were injured in the attack on the Al-Mawasi camp when tents for displaced persons were hit, with many severely wounded.

Israeli media reported that the target of the strike was Mohammed Deif, the leader of Hamas' military wing in Gaza. It is unclear whether Deif was hit, and the Israeli army has not commented.

The Israeli Foreign Ministry said it was investigating the airstrike and added that, "in view of the developments in Gaza," Defence Minister Yoav Gallant conducted an assessment of the operational situation along with military and intelligence chiefs.

One of Israel's central aims in the current conflict is to capture or kill Deif and the Hamas leader in the Gaza Strip, Yehya al-Sinwar. The third most senior Hamas leader in Gaza, Marwan Issa, was reportedly killed in March.

According to the Palestinian news agency Wafa, there were several fierce attacks in Gaza early on Saturday. Staff at the Nasser Hospital reported a shortage of beds to accommodate the large number of injured following the attacks.

The Israeli military said on Saturday that operations were continuing throughout the Gaza Strip, including in Gaza City. In the southern city of Rafah, Israeli forces destroyed numerous tunnels on Friday and killed several members of Hamas.

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