Israel said on Saturday that it tried to kill Hamas’s most senior political figure in the Gaza Strip, Ali al-Amoudi, in a pre-dawn airstrike on an apartment building in Gaza City — a strike that health officials said killed five people, including four women.
FAKTA
- Israel says it targeted Ali al-Amoudi, deputy head of Hamas’s political bureau in Gaza, in a pre-dawn airstrike on Saturday, October 4.
- Five people were killed, including four women; two of the dead were members of Gaza’s Greek Orthodox Christian community.
- Israel said it was reviewing whether al-Amoudi was killed or injured; Israeli army radio later assessed that the attempt had failed, according to Iranian and Spanish media reports.
- The strike fell on the anniversary, by the Jewish calendar, of the October 7, 2023 attacks.
Pre-dawn strike on apartment building
An official at Gaza City’s Al-Shifa hospital told the AFP news agency that it received the bodies of five people at dawn on Saturday following the Israeli attack on the Rimal neighbourhood. Gaza’s civil defence agency said two missiles directly hit an apartment, causing a fire and damaging the building.
The Israeli military said it launched the attack together with the Israel Security Agency with the intention of eliminating al-Amoudi, describing him as “the most senior Hamas figure in the Gaza Strip” and saying he was directly involved in the group’s activities and in rebuilding it for war. The military said it had used precise munitions, expressed regret for harm to uninvolved individuals, and accused Hamas of using civilians as human shields.
Civilians among the dead
The hospital director identified two of the dead as 56-year-old Maysaa Abu Daoud and her 36-year-old daughter Mary Al-Najjar, members of Gaza’s small Greek Orthodox community. Their funeral was held at noon on Saturday at the Church of Saint Porphyrius in Gaza City. A relative said the women had been “minding their own business” at home when the strike hit.
The death toll of five was reported by local health officials and carried by AFP and the Associated Press. Israeli media cited the military’s own figures as six.
Who is Ali al-Amoudi?
Israel described al-Amoudi as the deputy head of Hamas’s political bureau in Gaza and a close aide and “right-hand man” of slain Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar, alleging he was involved in planning the October 7, 2023 attack on southern Israel. Sinwar was killed by Israeli forces in Gaza in October 2024. Spanish and Iranian reports citing Israeli army radio said al-Amoudi had survived the strike; the Israeli military itself said only that the results were still under review, while Hamas-linked media had not reported his death.
Fragile ceasefire under strain
The strike landed amid a fragile US-brokered ceasefire agreed last year and ongoing ceasefire negotiations. Israel has stepped up targeted strikes in recent weeks, saying Hamas has rearmed; Palestinian officials accuse Israel of violating the truce. Israel said the pre-dawn operation showed it would continue to pursue senior Hamas figures anywhere in the Gaza Strip.
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