Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said it was still not clear whether Hamas military chief Mohammed Deif and his deputy were killed in an Israeli strike in Gaza on Saturday but he vowed to pursue Israel's war aims to the end.
"Either way, we will get to the whole of the leadership of Hamas," he told a televised news conference.
The strike took place in an area the military had designated as safe for hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in the crowded southern Gaza Strip.
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.
Netanyahu's brief news conference was called after the Israeli military said it had conducted a strike based on what it said was precise intelligence, targeting Deif and senior Hamas commander Rafa Salama in the city of Khan Younis.
The Gaza Health Ministry reported 90 dead and said at least 300 others were injured in the attack — one of the war's deadliest.
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.
