Gaza's civil defence agency said Israeli fire today killed at least six people, including a Hamas commander, confirming an earlier report from the Israeli military.
The civil defence, which operates as a rescue force under Hamas authority, said that Izz al-Din al Beik was killed in an Israeli strike west of Gaza City, together with another man.
Hamas described him in a statement as a "member of the General Military Council of the al-Qassam Brigades (Hamas's military wing) and commander of the Northern Brigade".
Announcing Mr al Beik's killing, the al-Qassam Brigades said he had been one of the commanders in the operations room for Hamas's October 7, 2023 attack on Israel that sparked the Gaza war.
The Israeli military confirmed Mr al Beik's role as commander of Hamas's northern Gaza brigade, and said he had directed Hamas operatives to carry out attacks against Israeli troops and civilians.
He was "eliminated in a precise aerial strike", the military said.
The civil defence further reported that three people were killed and several injured in two Israeli drone strikes in the Jabalia area in the northern Gaza Strip, and one person was killed by Israeli gunfire in Deir al-Balah in the centre of the territory.
The Israeli military said it would later provide further details about some of the targets.
Meanwhile, more than 100 Israeli settlers attacked a Palestinian village in the occupied West Bank today, drawing rare Israeli government condemnation after they injured three members of the security forces.
The raid, along with another attack on a different West Bank village, comes amid mounting international criticism of settler violence, which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu downplayed in an address last week to the United Nations.
Settler attack on West Bank village draws rare Israeli rebuke
Settlers stormed the village of Jalud in the northern West Bank as the military attempted to accompany a Palestinian family back to their home after they had been displaced by settler attacks two months earlier.
The Israeli military said "more than 100 Israeli rioters" were in the area overnight and soldiers and border police tried to disperse them.
"As a result of the clashes, three Israel Border Police officers were lightly injured, and a security forces vehicle was damaged," it said.
One person was arrested and two minors were taken in for questioning, police said.
The military said the settlers had blocked roads, set tyres on fire and thrown rocks at security forces, as well as setting fire to Palestinian buildings and vehicles in the village.
It added that the attack had prevented the return of the family, who had been displaced "following several incidents of (Israeli) nationalist crime against them".
Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967 and has been accelerating settlement expansion. Some 500,000 Israeli settlers live among three million Palestinians.
Mr Netanyahu condemned the attack, which he blamed on a "small group of rioters".
Their actions "cause great harm to that community and interfere with our forces as they carry out their mission," he said.
President Isaac Herzog, whose role is largely ceremonial, called the attack "a moral stain, an assault on the rule of law and our most fundamental values as a people and a nation".
Such criticism is rare for attacks in which the victims are Palestinian. According to the United Nations, settler attacks against Palestinians, including beatings, vandalism and arson, averaged six a day in the first half of the year.
Recent weeks have also seen high-profile attacks against Israelis in the West Bank, including the shooting death of a settler by a Palestinian.
Israel has voiced outrage and imposed diplomatic repercussions after Britain, the Netherlands and other countries imposed sanctions on products from Israeli settlements in the West Bank, which are illegal under international law.
Mahmoud al-Toubasi, a member of the family seeking to return to Jalud, said he and his relatives had left the house more than two months ago and that it had been occupied by settlers until the attack.
"My wife, my son and I went to the house in the car, accompanied by an army vehicle in front of us and another behind us," he said.
Settlers attacked the group upon their arrival at the house and were pushed back by soldiers with pepper spray, he added.
In a separate attack, dozens of settlers from hilltop outposts raided the Palestinian village of al-Mughayyir, northeast of Ramallah.
It is the scene of frequent attacks due to its isolated location and the presence of several settlement outposts all around it.
