Israel kills at least seven in strike on Gaza it says targeted Hamas military leader

AT LEAST SEVEN people have been killed and dozens of others wounded in an Israeli airstrike on Gaza, according to health officials in the Palestine Red Crescent Society’s Saraya Field Hospital and Shifa hospital. 

Israeli officials said the strike targeted the leader of Hamas’s military wing, but it was not immediately clear if Izz al-Din al-Haddad was killed or injured.

Hamas did not immediately acknowledge or comment on the strike.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Israel Katz said an airstrike carried out by the military on Friday evening targeted al-Haddad, the leader of Hamas’s Al-Qassam brigades.

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In a statement, Netanyahu and Katz said that al-Haddad was “one of the architects” of the 7 October attack.

There were at least two Israeli strikes on Friday evening in Gaza City, one of which Israel said targeted al-Haddad.

One strike targeted a residential building and another a vehicle.

Gaza has seen near-daily Israeli fire despite a US-brokered ceasefire agreement reached in October.

More than 850 people have been killed since then, according to Gaza’s health ministry, whose figures are viewed as generally reliable by the international community.

Netanyahu and Katz threatened that Israel will continue to work against all those who took part in the Hamas-led 7 October attack, in which militants killed some 1,200 people and took 251 hostages.

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More than 72,700 people have been killed in Gaza since Israel launched its offensive after the attack.

“Sooner or later, Israel will reach you,” the statement read.

Palestinian citizens reported more airstrikes that followed the one that targeted al-Haddad.

It was not immediately clear what the Israeli military was targeting.

With reporting from Press Association

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