It was unclear whether Deif was killed, the security official said. Army Radio said Deif was hiding in a building in the Israeli-designated humanitarian zone Al-Mawasi, west of the southern city of Khan Younis.
Deif was one of the masterminds of Hamas' Oct. 7 attack on Israel that triggered the war in Gaza. He has survived seven Israeli assassination attempts, the most recent in 2021 and has topped Israel's most-wanted list for decades.
The Gaza health ministry said at least 71 Palestinians had been killed in the strike and 289 injured.
Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant was holding special consultations, his office said, in light of "developments in Gaza". It was unclear how the strike would affect ceasefire talks underway in Doha and Cairo.
The Hamas-run media office said at least 100 people had been killed and wounded, including members of the Civil Emergency Service. The Israeli military said it was looking into the report
"All the martyrs are civilians and what happened was a grave escalation of the war of genocide, backed by the American support and world silence," Abu Zuhri told Reuters, adding the strike showed Israel was not interested in reaching a ceasefire deal.
Reuters footage showed ambulances racing towards the area amidst clouds of smoke and dust. Displaced people, including women and children, were fleeing in panic, some holding belongings in their hands.
Witnesses said the attack was a surprise as the area had been calm, adding more than one missile had been fired. Some of the wounded, who were being evacuated were rescue workers, they said.
"They're all gone, my whole family's gone.. where are my brothers? They're all gone, they're all gone. There's no one left," said one tearful woman, who did not give her name.
"Our children are in pieces, they are in pieces. Shame (on you)," she added.
Rising up the Hamas ranks over 30 years, Deif developed the group's network of tunnels and its bomb-making expertise. He is held responsible for the deaths of dozens of Israelis in suicide bombings.
Hamas-led fighters killed 1,200 people and took more than 250 hostages in a cross-border raid into southern Israel on Oct. 7, according to Israeli tallies.
Israel has retaliated by military action in Gaza that has killed more than 38,000 Palestinians, medical authorities in Gaza say.More than 70 Palestinians have been killed and hundreds are wounded in Israeli military strikes on al-Mawasi, located west of Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip.
Gaza’s Ministry of Health on Saturday put the death toll at 71 people and said 289 others were injured, including some critically wounded.
The attack by Israeli warplanes targeted tents housing displaced Palestinians and a water distillation unit in an area that a Gaza civil defence spokesperson told Al Jazeera was designated a “safe zone” by the Israeli military.
Images from the scene showed Palestinians trying to rescue people from under the rubble, with children and paramedics among the wounded.
Reporting from Deir el-Balah in central Gaza, Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azzoum said this was “a new massacre committed by the Israeli military”, adding that the area was hit by “five bombs and five missiles”.
“The scenes that are coming from the area that was targeted are incredibly bloody and devastating,” he said. The victims were taken to the Nasser and Kuwaiti hospitals.
People carry a casualty at the site of what Palestinians say was an Israeli strike at a tent camp in Al-Mawasi area
Men carry a casualty from a series of Israeli attacks in al-Mawasi, on July 13, 2024 [Hatem Khaled/Reuters]
An official at Nasser Hospital told Al Jazeera that medical teams did not have the capacity to receive any more wounded patients, while civil defence teams continued to work at the site of the attack.
The Israeli military claimed in a statement that it acted based on “precise intelligence” to hit an area where “two senior Hamas terrorists” and additional fighters hid among civilians. It described the location of the strike as “an open area surrounded by trees, several buildings, and sheds”.
Hamas said this was not the first time the Israeli military has made such claims that were later proven false.
“The al-Mawasi massacre in Khan Younis has been committed against an area that is crowded with more than 80,000 displaced people. This is an obvious and clear confirmation from the Zionist government that it will continuing its war of extermination against our Palestinian people, through repeatedly and systematically targeting the defenceless displaced civilians in tents, shelters and residential neighbourhoods,” Hamas said in a statement.
Reporting from Amman, Jordan, after Israel banned Al Jazeera, Hamdah Salhut said this is a familiar pattern by the Israeli military to justify attacks on “safe zones”.
“We have seen time and time again attacks on areas where there are displaced Palestinians in the tens of thousands. This is a tactic that is commonly used by Israeli forces, saying civilians are being used as ‘human shields’ for Hamas figures, using that as justification for killing dozens of civilians.”
The al-Mawasi area has been repeatedly targeted by the Israeli military, with a strike in late May killing at least 21 people after hitting tents housing displaced families.
Gaza civil defence said the deputy director of its fire and rescue department was killed in a separate Israeli strike in central Khan Younis, and eight other members were wounded. It said Israeli aircraft bombed the area again as civil defence teams were trying to rescue people from a residential building.
At least 60 bodies were discovered after the Israeli military withdrew from some neighbourhoods in Gaza City in the devastated northern part of the besieged enclave, civil defence teams said on Friday. More than 38,000 Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli military since the start of the war.
Last month, Israeli forces killed at least 274 Palestinians in central Gaza’s Nuseirat refugee camp during a daylight operation to free four Israeli captives.
Updating the casualties since October, Gaza’s health ministry said on Saturday that at least 38,443 Palestinians have been killed and 88,481 people have been injured in Israel’s war on the enclave.
