Israel said it had killed the head of weapons production in Hamas’s military wing in a strike in the Gaza Strip on Saturday.
The civil defence agency and medical sources in the Hamas-run Palestinian territory said an Israeli strike killed five people in the Tel al-Hawa district, southwest of Gaza City.
The army said there was only one strike conducted in the area which killed the top Hamas figure, Raad Saad.
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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Israel Katz said in a joint statement that “in response to the detonation of a Hamas explosive device that wounded our forces today in the Yellow Area of the Gaza Strip … [they] instructed the elimination of the terrorist Raad Saad”.
Under the US-brokered ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, Israeli troops have withdrawn to positions behind the so-called Yellow Line, though they are still in control of more than half the territory.
Netanyahu and Katz described Saad as “one of the architects” of the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel that sparked the war in Gaza.