Israeli fire kills four people in Gaza, medics say
Published: 06:10 PM,Oct 23,2026 | EDITED : 10:10 PM,Oct 23,2026
Israeli strikes and gunfire killed at least four people in the Gaza Strip in separate incidents on Thursday, health officials in the enclave said.
In Gaza City, a strike on a car killed at least one person, medics said. They earlier said there had been two deaths. A crowd gathered around the burning wreckage, as orange-vested emergency crews sprayed it with water, photos from the scene showed.
Other strikes killed a Palestinian man on a bike in the southern city of Khan Yunis and a man near Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, and gunfire killed a woman near the Jabalia refugee camp, in the north, the medics added.
Israel's military said it had struck Hamas fighters in Khan Yunis, Nuseirat and Gaza City, but that it was not aware of the reported incident in Jabalia.
The Hamas-led Interior Ministry in Gaza said an Israeli air strike killed a non-commissioned officer and wounded another officer from the drug control police department after hitting their vehicle while returning from an assignment in Tel al Hawa neighbourhood.
Israel, which says the Hamas group has been rearming and launching attacks in violation of a year-old ceasefire, has stepped up strikes on the group in recent weeks.
Hamas has denied trying to carry out attacks or rebuild its arsenal and accuses Israel of undermining the Gaza peace deal.
Last year's US-brokered ceasefire calls for eventual reconstruction of the territory. But little progress has been made as negotiators have failed to agree terms for Hamas to disarm and Israel to withdraw its troops.
Israeli air strikes have continued. At least 1,500 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since the ceasefire, according to the territory's health officials, while Israel says four soldiers have been killed.
Palestinian authorities say more than 74,000 people have been killed in Israel's assault on Gaza, launched after Hamas-led fighters killed about 1,200 people in southern Israel on October 7, 2023.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threatened a military operation in the occupied West Bank on a scale unseen in decades after Palestinian gunmen killed two Israeli soldiers on Friday in an attack near Hebron days before national elections.
A first step would see residents displaced, homes searched and 'fighter infrastructure' destroyed, said the premier, who is in the midst of a tight race for a new term in Tuesday's vote.
Hamas, without claiming responsibility, praised the attack as a 'heroic operation' and called on supporters to carry out more.
A Hebron-based AFP photographer who was en route to another assignment witnessed a gun battle break out Friday morning at the Farsh Al Hawa checkpoint near the West Bank city of Hebron between soldiers and two Palestinian men armed with a handgun and an automatic rifle.