Senior Hamas official in Lebanon Osama Hamdan insisted that the group’s top military commander Mohamamd Deif in alive and fine, refuting claims by the Israeli occupation regime that it had killed the shadowy leader of Hamas’ armed wing.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Hamdan stressed Deif is fine, noting that the Israeli claims were only intended to justify the great slaughter that the Zionist enemy had carried out.

Hamdan was referring to the horrific massacre that killed more than 90 people and injured hundreds others in Al-Mawasi in Gaza’s Khan Younis on July 13. The Israeli occupation claimed earlier this month that the July strike on Al-Mawasi killed Deif, with Israeli Defense Minister appearing in a photo crossing the commander-in-chief of Hamas’ Al-Qassam off on a wall chart.

Elsewhere in the interview, Hamdan, who is a member of Hamas’ Political Bureau, said the Palestinian resistance group is losing faith in the United States’ ability to mediate a ceasefire in Gaza ahead of a new round of talks.

“We have informed the mediators that … any meeting should be based on talking about implementation mechanisms and setting deadlines rather than negotiating something new,” Hamdan told AP.

“Israel has either sent a non-voting delegation (to the negotiations) or changed delegations from one round to another, so we would start again, or it has imposed new conditions.”

Source: The Associated Press (edited and translated by Al-Manar English Website)