GAZA CITY, Oct 21 — Israeli strikes on separate locations in the Gaza Strip killed seven Palestinians yesterday, according to the territory's civil defence rescue service and several hospitals.
Two men were killed in Israeli strikes in the town of Al-Zawaida and the Wadi Gaza area in the central Gaza Strip, according to Mahmoud Bassal, spokesperson of the civil defence, a rescue force operating under Hamas authority, and the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Hospital.
An Israeli strike in the Jabalia al-Balad area in northern Gaza killed one person, according to Bassal and Al-Shifa Hospital, which reported it had received another victim of a strike in the Zeitoun neighbourhood southeast of Gaza City.
In another Israeli strike, a man and a woman, identified by Al-Shifa Hospital as Akram Yassin and his wife, were killed and several others injured in a residential block near the hospital in the Al-Rimal neighbourhood, west of Gaza City.
The Israeli military later said it killed "Akram Bassam Shaaban Yassin, a senior official in the general security apparatus of the terrorist organisation Hamas in the Gaza Strip".
Nasser Hospital reported that it had also received the body of a teenager killed by Israeli gunfire south of Khan Younis in Gaza's south.
When contacted by AFP, the Israeli military said it was verifying the other reports.
It had earlier said it had "eliminated a Hamas terrorist who had taken part in the abduction of Shani Louk during the October 7 massacre" in a strike in the Jabalia area, referring to an Israeli woman filmed in the attack lying face down in the back of a pick-up truck filled with gunmen. Her body was later repatriated.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is campaigning for re-election in what is expected to be a close general election later this month, has vowed to continue targeting Hamas despite the ceasefire that came into force in October 2025.
Israel's military offensive against Hamas after the October 7, 2023 attack has displaced nearly all the population of Gaza and killed more than 74,450 people, according to Gaza's health ministry, which is under Hamas authority and whose figures are considered reliable by the United Nations.
Israel has vowed to obliterate Hamas after the attack that resulted in 1,221 deaths, according to an AFP tally from official Israeli figures, in what was the deadliest day in the country's history.
Israel has continued its strikes on Gaza almost daily, with the Gaza health ministry saying those attacks have killed at least 1,500 people since the truce was implemented. — AFP
