Dov Lieber, Fatima AbdulKarim and Lara Seligman
Israel had tried—and failed—to kill Hamas’s top military leader, Mohammed Deif, several times. So when intelligence emerged he was hiding in a compound in southern Gaza, Israel struck with overwhelming force, hitting it with eight 2,000-pound bombs, people familiar with the operation said.
The force of the blast from the precision-guided munitions reduced the target to a smoldering crater. Scores of Palestinians in the area around the compound—which was home to a market, a water source and a soup kitchen serving displaced civilians—were killed and hundreds wounded, Palestinian authorities said.
The bombs hit around 10:30 a.m. on Saturday, Israeli military officials said. Mahmoud Abu Amer, who said he was standing about 100 yards away at the time, described the scene as being “like a fiery belt” and said, “I saw people falling in front of me.” Others described a rain of shrapnel.
Israel’s military said it attacked a fenced compound, used by Hamas and manned by militants, and took precautions to limit civilian casualties. It acknowledged the area was surrounded by civilians, but said responsibility for civilian casualties lay with Deif and his fighters for seeking to hide among them.
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