Two Israeli strikes in and around Gaza City left five people dead on Tuesday, according to hospital officials and rescue workers, as Israel said its forces were targeting Hamas “military operatives”.
Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City reported receiving two bodies “following an Israeli airstrike that targeted the entrance of a residential building near the municipal park in Gaza City”.
Later, the hospital said three more bodies arrived along with several wounded people “as a result of an Israeli drone strike that targeted a civilian car in the Tel al-Hawa neighbourhood, southwest of Gaza City”.
The civil defence, a rescue service operating under Hamas authority, confirmed the death toll from the two incidents.
Photos released by the civil defence showed responders and others gathered around the vehicle hit in the second strike, which appeared completely destroyed — reduced to a blackened, twisted shell of metal — as workers inspected the wreckage.
Palestinians use water to extinguish a vehicle that caught fire following an Israeli airstrike
The Israeli military said both attacks struck operatives from Hamas’s military wing, the Ezzedine Al-Qassam brigades, adding that further details would be provided later.
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The deaths came despite a US-backed ceasefire that took effect in October 2025. Violence in Gaza has continued, with Israel carrying out strikes on Palestinians it says are militants.
Israel has said it must remove threats from Hamas, whose unprecedented 7 October, 2023 attack against Israel set off the war in Gaza.
Since the ceasefire began, Israeli operations in Gaza have killed at least 1,318 people, according to the Palestinian territory’s health ministry. The ministry operates under Hamas authority, and the United Nations considers its figures reliable.
Over the same period, the Israeli army has reported five deaths among its forces, along with the death of one civilian contractor.
