Hamas says cease-fire talks have not paused

MUWASI, Gaza Strip — Hamas said Sunday that Gaza cease-fire talks continue and the group’s military commander was in good health, a day after the Israeli military targeted Mohammed Deif with a massive airstrike.

Deif’s condition remained unclear after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Saturday night “there still isn’t absolute certainty” he was killed. Army chief Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi told journalists Israel attacked a compound where Deif “was hiding” but added: “It’s still too early to summarize the results of the attack, which Hamas is trying to hide.”

Hamas representatives gave no evidence to back up their assertion about the health of a chief architect of the Oct. 7 terrorist attack that sparked the war. His killing would mark the highest profile assassination of any Hamas leader by Israel since the war began. Deif has long topped Israel’s most-wanted list and has been in hiding for years.

The Israeli military said Rafa Salama, a Hamas commander it described as one of Deif’s closest associates, was killed in Saturday’s strike. Salama had commanded Hamas’ Khan Younis brigade. Netanyahu said all of Hamas’ leaders are “marked for death” and asserted that killing them would move Hamas closer to accepting a cease-fire deal.

Hamas rejected the idea that mediated cease-fire discussions had been suspended.

Hamas political officials also insisted that communication channels remained functional between the leadership inside and outside Gaza after the strike in the territory’s south.

On Sunday, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant praised the pilots who carried out the strike and said Hamas is being eroded every day, with no ability to arm itself, organize or “care for the wounded.”

At least 300 people were wounded in the strike, one of the deadliest in the nine-month war sparked by Hamas’ Oct. 7 terrorist attack on southern Israel that killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took more than 200 hostage.

More than 38,400 people in Gaza have been killed in Israeli ground offensives and bombardments since then, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry. The ministry does not distinguish between combatants and civilians in its count.

On Sunday, an Israeli strike in Nuseirat in central Gaza killed at least 14 people at the gate of a school used as a shelter for displaced people, according to an Associated Press journalist who visited two hospitals. Children were among the 15 others wounded. Israel’s military in a statement said it struck “terrorists” operating in the area of a school run by the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees.

Also on Sunday, police said a Palestinian resident of east Jerusalem carried out a car-ramming attack in central Israel that injured four Israelis, two of them seriously. Israeli border police at the scene shot dead the attacker after he hit people waiting at two bus stops along a busy road. Israel’s military said four of its personnel were wounded, two of them severely.