Israeli Strikes Hit Building and Car, Five Killed in Gaza

Hospitals and rescue teams in Gaza said Israeli air strikes killed five people west of Gaza City. The Israeli military stated it targeted members of Hamas’s military wing.

Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City said it received two bodies “following an Israeli air strike that targeted the entrance of a residential building near a city park in Gaza City”, AFP reported on Monday (31/8/2026).

Later the same day, the hospital said it had received three additional bodies and several wounded people “as a result of an Israeli drone strike that targeted a civilian car in the Tel al-Hawa area, southwest of Gaza City”.

The civil defence service, which operates as a rescue service under the Hamas authority, confirmed the casualty figures from both strikes to AFP.

Images shared by the civil defence service showed officers examining the car targeted in the second strike; the vehicle was completely destroyed, leaving only a charred, twisted metal frame, surrounded by a crowd of residents.

When contacted by AFP, the Israeli military said that in both strikes it “attacked members of Hamas’s military wing”, namely the Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades, and said it would provide further details at a later time.

Despite a US-backed ceasefire that took effect in October 2025, violence has not stopped in the Gaza Strip, where Israel continues to target Palestinians it describes as militants.

Israel insists it must eliminate the threat from Hamas, the group whose unprecedented attack on Israel on 7 October 2023 triggered the war in Gaza.

Israel’s operations in Gaza have killed at least 1,318 people since the ceasefire came into force, according to the Palestinian territory’s health ministry — which also operates under the Hamas authority and whose data is considered reliable by the United Nations.

The Israeli military reported five deaths in its own ranks during the same period, as well as the death of a civilian contractor.