Army says it killed Hamas gunmen approaching troops in Gaza

Gaza officials report four die in strike near Gaza City’s Darraj neighborhood in northern Strip; military says cell posed an ‘immediate threat’ to soldiers

An Israeli airstrike killed four Palestinians near Gaza City’s Darraj neighborhood in the northern Gaza Strip on Sunday, local health authorities said.

The Israel Defense Forces said it killed armed Hamas operatives overnight who posed a threat to Israeli troops stationed in the northern Gaza Strip.

The military said it identified the cell of Hamas gunmen who were “operating in proximity to IDF troops in the northern Gaza Strip, in a manner that posed an immediate threat to the forces.”

“Immediately upon identification, the IDF carried out a targeted strike and eliminated the cell to remove the threat,” the IDF said.

The incident took place before dawn, according to the civil defense agency, which operates under Hamas.

“An Israeli airstrike before dawn killed four and wounded several,” it reported.

Gaza’s Al-Shifa hospital confirmed the toll, saying the strike was carried out by an Israeli drone.

“Four martyrs and five wounded arrived at the hospital this morning after an Israeli drone fired two missiles at a group of civilians,” the hospital said in a statement.

It came after the IDF said on Friday that it carried out an airstrike against a cell of armed Hamas operatives in the northern Strip.

Hamas and Israel have traded blame for violations of the ceasefire agreed last October, which halted two years of full-blown war.

The Gaza health ministry, which is controlled by Hamas, says Israeli fire has killed at least 700 people since the ceasefire began, though it does not differentiate between civilians and combatants. The figures cannot be independently verified.

Four IDF soldiers have been killed in attacks by Gazans over the same period. A fifth soldier was killed in a friendly fire incident.

Hamas is required to disarm under the US plan ending the war, but the terror group has refused to do so, holding up implementation.

A Hamas delegation met Egyptian, Qatari and Turkish mediators in Cairo last week to give its initial response to a disarmament proposal presented to the group last month, two Egyptian sources and a Palestinian official said.

The group has told mediators it will not discuss giving up arms without guarantees that Israel will fully quit Gaza as laid out in a disarmament plan from US President Donald Trump’s “Board of Peace,” three sources told Reuters on Thursday.

Hamas’s disarmament is a sticking point in talks to implement Trump’s plan for the Palestinian enclave and cement the ceasefire. Gaza is currently bisected into Israeli-held and Hamas-held areas.

The Hamas-led October 7, 2023, invasion of southern Israel killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and triggered the war in Gaza. The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says more than 72,000 people in the Strip have been killed during the war — including those since the October 2025 ceasefire — though the toll does not differentiate between civilians and combatants.

The Israeli military believes that Hamas’s overall toll is largely accurate, with IDF officials estimating that two to three civilians were killed for every terror operative.

The IDF says it killed over 23,000 combatants in Gaza, and another 1,600 terrorists inside Israel during the October 7 onslaught.

Israel has said it seeks to minimize civilian fatalities and stresses that Hamas uses Gaza’s civilians as human shields, fighting from civilian areas, including homes, hospitals, schools, and mosques.

The war spread hunger, demolished most buildings, and displaced most of the territory’s population, in many cases, numerous times.