5 Palestinians said killed in Gaza strikes; IDF targets nine terror operatives

Five Palestinians were reportedly killed by Israeli strikes across the Gaza Strip on Monday, with the Israeli military also announcing it had killed two commanders in the Hamas terror group in earlier attacks.

The Israel Defense Forces said that one strike on Saturday in Gaza City killed Mohammed Halawa, a Hamas intelligence officer, and another strike on Thursday killed Ahmed Zahir Fuad Abu-Odeh, an engineering officer in the terror group.

“Throughout the war, and particularly recently, the terrorists advanced attacks against IDF troops and Israeli civilians and acted to restore the capabilities of the Hamas terror organization, in systematic violation of the ceasefire,” the IDF said, adding that they were killed to “remove the threat they posed.”

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Meanwhile, five Palestinians, including a seven-year-old girl, were killed in Israeli attacks in Gaza, medical sources and first responders said. Three of the deaths were reported in the al-Mawasi area of Khan Younis in southern Gaza.

The Times of Israel could not independently verify the reports. In response to a query, the IDF said it was “unaware” of any military activity in al-Mawasi on Monday.

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Mahmoud Bassal, spokesperson for the Hamas-run Gaza Civil Defense agency, told AFP that over the past 24 hours, 13 people were killed and about 60 wounded by alleged Israeli fire and airstrikes in Gaza.

Nasser Hospital in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis said the three killed in al-Mawasi “were torn apart by direct hits from shrapnel from the Israeli missile,” adding that several wounded people, including a child and a woman, had also been brought in for treatment.

The hospital identified the dead as Hossam al-Zamli, Tamer Abu Sneima and Jouri al-Soufi. Gaza’s Hamas-run Education Ministry gave al-Soufi’s age as 7.

The Gaza Civil Defense agency said a fourth person was killed in an airstrike on a tent housing displaced Palestinians near Khan Younis.

In Gaza City’s Rimal neighborhood, another airstrike killed one and injured three, according to the city’s al-Shifa hospital.

Meanwhile, a “security source in Gaza” told AFP that “several tanks and military vehicles, accompanied by a military bulldozer, advanced on Monday morning into the area west of the Yellow Line in the eastern part of Deir al-Balah,” in central Gaza.

After a US-brokered ceasefire took hold in Gaza in October 2025, the so-called Yellow Line was established to divide the areas under Israeli control — now some 63 percent of the territory — from those under Hamas control.

The military advance on Monday coincided with “heavy gunfire” by the IDF “toward the eastern and northern areas” of Deir al-Balah, home to hundreds of displaced families, the source added.

Israel in recent months has increasingly targeted terror operatives in Gaza, including numerous terrorists who took part in the Hamas-led October 7 atrocities, saying they posed a threat to Israeli forces.

According to the military, many of the recent strikes focused on Hamas operatives involved in building up the terror group’s force and civil control mechanisms in the Strip.

Hamas reportedly told a UN official earlier this month that it was prepared to carry out an October 7-style attack in Israel, the West Bank or abroad, following the IDF’s expansion past the Gaza ceasefire line and the Palestinian Authority’s cancellation of legislative elections in November.

Implementation of US President Donald Trump’s peace plan for Gaza has stalled, with Hamas refusing to disarm and Israel refusing to withdraw from any part of Gaza until that condition is met.

Meanwhile, a drone flown from Israel toward the Gaza Strip overnight was downed by troops, the military said Monday morning.

The IDF said the drone was brought down over Israeli territory, near Kibbutz Nahal Oz, and the contents of its payload were being investigated.

The drone appeared to be a DJI Flycart or similar heavy-duty model, capable of carrying large payloads of dozens of kilograms.

There have also been an unknown number of smuggling attempts from Israel into Gaza using drones since the start of the October 2025 ceasefire. According to the IDF, suspects on the Israeli side load up drones with weapons or drugs and fly them over the border into Gaza.

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