Israeli strikes in Gaza City kill at least seven on 78th Nakba anniversary

At least seven Palestinians were killed and dozens wounded after Israeli air strikes hit a residential building and a civilian vehicle in Gaza City on Friday, as Israel announced it had targeted a senior Hamas commander in the enclave.

The attacks struck western Gaza City, where many displaced Palestinians had taken shelter after fleeing repeated Israeli military operations in other parts of the territory.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Israel Katz said in a joint statement that the strike targeted Izz al-Din al-Haddad, the head of Hamas’s armed wing in Gaza and “one of the architects” of the October 7 attacks.

In their statement, Netanyahu and Katz said Haddad was targeted because he was “responsible for the murder, abduction, and injury of thousands of Israeli civilians and IDF soldiers”.

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They also accused him of obstructing President Donald Trump’s Gaza peace proposal by refusing to “disarm Hamas of its weapons and demilitarise the Gaza Strip”.

The statement did not confirm whether Haddad was killed. Hamas has not commented on the claim.

Residential building and vehicle struck

Medical sources told the Anadolu news agency that three Palestinians were killed in a strike targeting a civilian vehicle, while four others died after a residential building in the Rimal neighbourhood was hit. According to Al Jazeera, three women and a child were among those killed.

Anadolu reported that at least 45 people were injured, with several said to be in critical condition.

“According to witnesses on the ground, the attack involved at least four missiles,” Al Jazeera reported. A “massive fire” broke out in the residential building following the strike.

According to reports, scenes of panic unfolded as Palestinians fled the area after the strikes, while the western part of Gaza City had become heavily overcrowded with people displaced by earlier Israeli military operations.

Mahmoud Basel, spokesperson for Gaza’s civil defence agency, said hundreds of people had been inside the residential building at the time of the strike. “The missile was fired ⁠⁠without any pre-warning or notification. We are talking about a number of dead. We are talking about a big number of wounded, among them families,” Basel told Reuters.

Strike comes on Nakba anniversary

The attacks took place on the 78th anniversary of the Nakba, the day commemorating the displacement of an estimated 750,000 Palestinians during the 1948 war surrounding the creation of Israel.

Despite the US-brokered peace plan for Gaza, hostilities have continued across the enclave.

According to Gaza’s health ministry, close to 850 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks since the “ceasefire” established last October.