Seven people have been killed in Gaza on Nakba Day as Israel says it is targeting a member of Hamas | Israel-Palestine War News

Three women and a child are among the civilians killed in the latest Israeli airstrikes on Gaza City.

At least seven Palestinians have been killed and many others injured in two Israeli attacks on a residential building and a civilian vehicle in Gaza City, according to medical sources.

The death came on Friday as Israel said it carried out an attack on Izz al-Din al-Haddad, the head of Hamas’s military wing in Gaza.

In a joint statement, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz said they would look into “one of the architects” of the October 7 attacks. Their statement did not say if Haddad was killed.

Hamas did not immediately respond, and Al Jazeera did not independently confirm the Israeli claims.

Medical sources told the Anadolu news agency that three Palestinians were killed in an attack on a civilian vehicle, and four others died in an attack on a house in the Rimal neighborhood west of Gaza City.

Three mothers and a child were among the dead, sources told Al Jazeera. Anadolu said at least 45 others were injured, several said to be in critical condition.

“According to eyewitnesses, the attack involved four rockets,” Al Jazeera’s Gaza correspondent Ibrahim Al Khalili said. He added that a “big fire” engulfed the apartment building that was bombed.

There was “panic” at the scene as Palestinians were forced to flee, Al Khalili said.

Israel’s latest attack comes on its 78th anniversary Nakba – a day to commemorate the approximately 750,000 Palestinians who were driven from their homes during the 1948 war for the creation of Israel.

Al Khalili described the attack site in western Gaza City as “crowded” because many people had left eastern Gaza City seeking refuge from Israel’s heavy military operations.

Mahmoud Basel, spokesman for Gaza’s public security, said hundreds of people were living inside a shelter under surveillance.

“The missile was fired ⁠⁠without any warning or information. We are talking about several (dead). We are talking about a large number of injured, among them families,” Basel told Reuters.

Netanyahu and Katz said they targeted Haddad because he “killed, kidnapped, and injured thousands of Israeli civilians and IDF soldiers”.

The statement also accused Haddad of being an obstacle to Trump’s peace deal in Gaza because he refused to “disarm Hamas and withdraw troops from the Gaza Strip”.

Despite Trump’s peace plan in Gaza, the war continues in the region. Since the “ceasefire” was implemented last October, approximately 850 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks, according to the Gaza health ministry.

Al Khalili said many Palestinians thought ending the war would bring “relief”, but it has brought nothing but “disaster”.