At least 90 people killed by Israeli strike targeting top Hamas commander in southern Gaza

Hamas called the attack a "grave escalation", as ITV News' correspondent Neil Connery reports.

Israel said it targeted Hamas’ shadowy military commander in a massive strike in the southern Gaza Strip that killed at least 90 people, according to local health officials.

It was not immediately known whether Mohammed Deif was among the dead. But Israeli officials confirmed that he and a second Hamas commander, Rafa Salama, were the targets.

Hamas immediately rejected the claim.

Footage of the aftermath showed a huge crater, charred tents and burnt-out cars. Victims were carried on the hoods and in the hatchbacks of cars, and on donkey carts and carpets.

“Children were all martyred here. We collected their pieces with our hands," said one Palestinian man who did not give his name.

An Israeli military official later said they were “still checking and verifying the result of the strike," and did not deny it took place in an area the Israeli military had designated as safe for hundreds of thousands of Palestinians.

Referring to other Hamas leaders Netanyahu vowed "we will reach them all", while Defense Minister Yoav Gallant told the military to increase "operational readiness on all fronts."

The Gaza Health Ministry said at least 300 others were injured in the attack and that many of the injured and dead were taken to nearby Nasser Hospital.

The strikes hit an area where displaced people were sheltering, according to the ministry. Videos from the scene show locals and rescue teams trying to unearth several people still trapped.

“A number of victims are still under the rubble and on the roads, and ambulance and civil defense crews are unable to reach them," the Health Ministry said.

A doctor working in Nasser Hospital told ITV News the situation was "terrible".

He described seeing patients suffering from a range of injuries, including internal bleeding, shrapnel in their brain, and crush wounds.

Al-Mawasi has been designated by Israel as a safe zone for Palestinians fleeing the fighting raging in Gaza.

The coastal strip is where hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians have fled to in search of safety, sheltering mostly in makeshift tents.

Dr Khamis Elessi, currently sheltering with his family in Gaza City, told ITV News the situation was "relentless".

"The bombing is indiscriminate here," he said.

"We hope this merciless war will stop, because the civilians are paying the highest price for this."

After spending five hours travelling through the night to what they were told was a safe area, Dr Elessi said his family came under a "barrage" of missiles, and had to flee again.

He appealed to the new UK government to "act now" to put an end to the killing of civilians.

The U.N. human rights office in a statement said Israel's continued use of weapons with wide effect in densely populated civilian areas "suggests a pattern of willful violation of the disregard of international humanitarian law principles."

Israel launched its campaign in Gaza after Hamas’ October 7 attack in which militants stormed into southern Israel, killed some 1,200 people - mostly civilians - and abducted about 250.

Since then, Israeli ground offensives and bombardments have killed more than 38,300 people in Gaza and wounded more than 88,000, according to the territory’s Health Ministry.

The ministry does not distinguish between combatants and civilians in its count.

More than 80% of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been driven from their homes, and most are now crowded into squalid tent camps, facing widespread hunger.

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