Conflicting media reports on Hamas pulling out of Gaza truce talks after Israeli strike

GAZA STRIP – A Hamas official on July 14 said the group is pulling out of Gaza truce talks, following an Israeli strike that targeted military chief Mohammed Deif, who another Hamas figure said was “fine” despite the attack, AFP reported.

But some news services later reported Hamas denying its withdrawal from ceasefire talks.

“Commander Mohammed Deif is well and directly overseeing” the operations of the Hamas military wing, according to AFP, quoting its source. Israel staged a huge bombing raid on a camp for displaced people in southern Gaza on July 13 that it said was an attempt to kill Deif.

Another senior official from the Iran-backed Islamist group, which has been fighting a nine-month-long war with Israel in the Gaza Strip, said Hamas was withdrawing from ceasefire talks because of

Israeli “massacres”

and the country’s attitude in negotiations, AFP reported.

The Health Ministry in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip said

at least 92 people were killed

, more than half of them women and children, and 300 wounded in the strike on Al-Mawasi camp.

Quoting its source, AFP reported that Hamas’ Qatar-based political chief Ismail Haniyeh had 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”.

But Mr Izzat Al-Rishq, a member of the Hamas political bureau, described as “baseless” the AFP report that the group will quit the talks, Bloomberg and Reuters reported.

Israel’s latest “escalation” had been engineered to “block the way to reaching an agreement”, he added in a brief statement.

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.

‘No certainty’

Al-Mawasi, where the Health Ministry said dozens were killed, had been declared a safe humanitarian zone in May by the Israeli military, and civilians were ordered to evacuate to it. However, there have been multiple deadly incidents there, which were blamed on Israeli strikes.

Mr Philippe Lazzarini, head of UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, described the area as “a sandy 14 sq km 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 Mr Lazzarini on social media site X.

Israel said it had targeted Deif, the head of the Al-Qassam Brigades, and Rafa Salama, a brigade commander, in the strike on July 13.

While Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu acknowledged there was “no certainty” that Deif was dead, Israel said on July 14 that Salama had been killed in the attack.

Deif has been among Israel’s most wanted men for decades and is blamed by the Israeli authorities for the killings of multiple civilians and soldiers. There have been at least six previous attempts on his life.

He announced in an audio message the start of Hamas’

surprise Oct 7 attack on southern Israel

, which sparked the Gaza war, and the military has labelled him and Salama “two of the masterminds” of the attack.

Separately, on July 14, 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.

Hamas’ attack on Oct 7 resulted in the deaths of 1,195 people, 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 who the military says are dead.

Israel responded with a military offensive that has killed at least 38,443 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to a toll from the Gaza Health Ministry issued on the afternoon of July 13.

‘Horrific massacre’

The deaths in the Al-Mawasi camp drew condemnation from governments across the region, with Egypt’s Foreign Ministry saying such “crimes... cannot be accepted under any justification whatsoever”.

The Israeli military said of its attack targeting Deif that “the area struck was an open area, surrounded by trees, several buildings and sheds. It was not a tent complex but an operational compound”.

A Hamas statement rejected Israel’s claim that it had targeted Deif, saying it was intended “to cover up the magnitude of the horrific massacre”.

Earlier this week, US President Joe Biden said a framework for a truce and hostage deal he had set out earlier in the war was “now agreed on by both Israel and Hamas”.

“There are still gaps to close, but we’re making progress,” he added.

On the night of July 13, Hamas official Basem Naim said that Mr Netanyahu was to blame for the impasse and called on Mr Biden to put “sufficient pressure” on the Israeli leader to secure a deal. AFP, BLOOMBERG, REUTERS