Israel claims deadly strikes were attempt to kill Hamas leader

Israel claimed on Saturday that its airstrike on a Gaza apartment, which killed five people, including four women, was part of an attempt to kill an alleged Hamas leader.

The Israeli military said it aimed to kill Ali al-Amoudi, describing him as the "right-hand man" of slain Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar and alleging he was involved in planning the 7 October attack.

Israel said it was reviewing whether it killed or injured him.

"Today, al-Amoudi is the most senior Hamas figure in the Gaza Strip and is directly involved in Hamas's terror activities and in rebuilding the organisation for war. The terrorist was struck in order to remove the threat," an Israeli military statement said.

Israeli strike on apartment

The Israeli airstrike on the residential apartment comes despite a ceasefire which was agreed last year.

An official at Gaza City's Al-Shifa hospital told *AFP *it received at dawn the bodies of five people and several injured following the Israeli attack on the Rimal neighbourhood.

It said the dead were two women and their daughters, as well as a man.

Mahmoud Bassal, the spokesman for the civil defence agency which operates as a rescue force under Hamas authority, said two missiles directly hit the apartment, causing a fire and damaging the building.

Two of the five victims were Christians, the hospital director said. Mourners gathered later on Saturday at the small Greek Orthodox church of Saint Porphyrius in Gaza City for the funeral of the two women, identified as 56-year-old Maysaa Abu Daoud and her 36-year-old daughter Mary Al-Najjar.

Ihab Ayad, a relative of the women, said that they had been "minding their own business" at home when Israel carried out the strike.

"We didn't hurl stones or fire rockets. If any child among us carries a stone, they call him a terrorist, a murderer. But they possess the most powerful arsenal and destroy everything," he said.

Around 1,000 Christians, most of them Orthodox, live in the Palestinian territory. A larger Palestinian Christian community lives in the West Bank, although emigration has increased since the start of the war.

Israel's war on Gaza has left much of the enclave in ruins and killed more than 74,200 people, according to Gaza's health ministry.

Israeli forces have killed more than 1,440 people since the announcement of the ceasefire a year ago, according to Gaza's health ministry.

The Israeli military has identified five deaths in its ranks over the same period, as well as the death of one civilian contractor.