Gaza health officials say Israeli strikes kill 6

Gaza health officials said Israeli strikes killed six people across the Palestinian territory on Wednesday and wounded several others, including the son of Hamas’s chief negotiator.

Despite an October ceasefire, Gaza remains gripped by daily violence as Israeli strikes continue, with both the military and Hamas accusing one another of violating the truce.

“Five people have been killed since this morning in strikes by the occupation on the Gaza Strip,” the civil defence agency, which operates as a rescue service, said.

Gaza City’s Al-Ahli hospital reported receiving “three dead and a number of wounded following an Israeli drone strike on the Zeitoun neighbourhood, southeast of Gaza City”.

A separate strike on the Al-Daraj neighbourhood killed one person and wounded 10 others, including the son of Hamas’s chief negotiator Khalil al-Hayya, the hospital and a security source said.

Azzam Khalil Al-Hayya has been “seriously wounded in the Israeli airstrike”, the security source told AFP.

Two more people were killed and more than a dozen wounded in Israeli attacks in other parts of the territory, the civil defence agency and hospitals said.

One of the two was a Hamas police officer, according to a security source.

The ceasefire has largely halted the Gaza war that began after Hamas’s October 7, 2023 retaliatory attack on Israel.

But violence has persisted, with at least 837 Palestinians killed since the truce began, according to Gaza’s health ministry, which operates under Hamas authority and whose figures are considered reliable by the United Nations.

Over the same period, the Israeli military said five soldiers have been killed in Gaza.