Israeli military claims to kill five Hamas militants in Northern Gaza operation
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Israel's military said on Friday it had killed five Hamas militants, including two commanders, in an overnight raid in northern Gaza's Beit Lahia, where Palestinian medics reported dozens killed or missing.
In a statement, the military and the Shin Bet security agency said they had "eliminated five Hamas terrorists, including a Nukhba (commando) company commander and an additional company commander who participated in the October 7 massacre" that sparked the Gaza war last year.
The army added that the commanders had "led the murders and kidnappings in the area of Mefalsim", a kibbutz community in southern Israel, near the Gaza border.
Medics in the Gaza Strip said an overnight Israeli raid on Beit Lahia and nearby Jabalia resulted in dozens killed or missing.
The civil defence agency was not immediately able to provide an exact toll.
The Israeli military said it had taken "numerous steps... to mitigate the risk to civilians".
It named the militant commanders killed as Jihad Kahlout and Muhammad Okel, "two terrorists who commanded the invasion of Israeli territory on October 7 and led the massacres and kidnappings on the Mefalsim road".
They were "among the leaders of the combat in the northern Gaza Strip against IDF (army) soldiers, during the operation that is currently underway in the area", the military statement added.
Vowing to stop Hamas from regrouping in the already devastated north of the Gaza Strip, Israel launched a sweeping assault on the area in early October.
According to Hamas-ruled Gaza's health ministry, the latest Israeli operation has killed thousands of people.
Hossam Abu Safieh, director of one of the last remaining functioning hospitals in Gaza's north, Kamal Adwan, said the Israeli army had bombed his facility's generator on Thursday.
"This will cause very great damage, especially since there is no alternative to this generator, which all hospital departments depend on," he told AFP.
Gaza's civil defence agency said in a statement on Friday that strikes the previous night had killed 12 Palestinians in the Gaza City area.
In a separate statement, the army and the Shin Bet security agency said Friday they had killed Khalid Abu Daqqa, commander of the Islamic Jihad militant group's rocket unit in an air strike on Wednesday on the central Gazan city of Deir el-Balah.