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6 said killed by IDF in Gaza; Israel tries, fails to assassinate Hamas spokesman
Israeli attacks on Thursday reportedly killed six people across the Gaza Strip, while targeting and failing to kill a spokesman for the Hamas terror group.
Gaza’s Hamas-run civil defense agency said six people were killed in Israeli drone strikes and gunfire. Hamas’s figures are unverified and do not differentiate between civilians and combatants.
Two people were killed and several others injured when an Israeli drone struck central Gaza’s Nuseirat camp, the agency said, and four people were killed in other attacks.
Gaza hospitals said they received the bodies of six individuals killed in the attacks.
A security source in Gaza said an Israeli drone strike targeted the vehicle of Hazem Qassem, a spokesman for Hamas.
Qassem was not in the vehicle, but the strike killed his bodyguard, the source said.
The bodyguard was among the six fatalities reported by the civil defense agency.
The Israel Defense Forces did not immediately respond when asked about the attacks.
IDF: Islamic Jihad commander, Hamas sniper killed
The IDF did confirm that a commander in the Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s weapon production division was killed in an Israeli strike in the southern Gaza Strip on Wednesday.
The IDF said Thursday that the strike killed Rashid al-Qadhi, who “played a central role in various processes within the organization’s production array, which is responsible for manufacturing and supplying all weapons to the group’s military wing.”
A separate strike in northern Gaza on Wednesday killed Abdullah Baha al-Din Razak al-Souti, a Hamas sniper, according to the military.
The IDF said the activities of both terror operatives “posed a threat to our forces,” and they were therefore targeted.
The IDF in recent months has been ramping up strikes on terror operatives in Gaza, saying they posed a threat to Israeli forces, following the October 2025 ceasefire that halted the war and saw the last of the hostages returned.
בדרום רצועת עזה: צה”ל חיסל מפקד במערך הייצור של ארגון הטרור גא”פ
צה”ל תקף אתמול בדרום רצועת עזה וחיסל את המחבל רשיד אלקאצ’י, ראש מדור במערך הייצור של ארגון הטרור גא”פ.
אלקאצ’י לקח חלק מרכזי בתהליכים שונים במערך הייצור של הארגון, האחראי על ייצור ואספקת כלל אמצעי הלחימה לזרוע… pic.twitter.com/wUSuUL6sqQ
— צבא ההגנה לישראל (@idfonline) July 9, 2026
The IDF and Shin Bet also announced on Thursday that another Palestinian terrorist who invaded Israel during the October 7, 2023, onslaught was killed in an airstrike in Gaza this week.
The Tuesday strike in southern Gaza killed Wahid Abu Salam, who served as a company commander in the Nasser Salah al-Din Brigades, the military wing of the Popular Resistance Committees, a terror faction.
On October 7, Abu Salam invaded Israeli territory, took part in abducting civilians, and held hostages in captivity in southern Gaza, the military said.
The IDF said that recently, Abu Salam worked to advance attacks on Israeli soldiers, and he “posed an immediate threat to the troops and was eliminated in a precise aerial strike.”
The IDF has for more than two and a half years sought out and targeted those involved in the October 7 attack, in which terrorists killed 1,200 people and took 251 hostages, launching the Gaza war.
The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says more than 73,000 people in the Strip have been killed during the war — including over 1,000 since the October 2025 ceasefire — though the toll is unverified and does not differentiate between civilians and combatants.
The Israeli military believes that Hamas’s overall toll is largely accurate, with IDF officials estimating that two to three civilians were killed for every dead terror operative.
The IDF says it has killed over 23,000 combatants in Gaza and another 1,600 terrorists inside Israel during the October 7 onslaught.
Israel has said it seeks to minimize civilian fatalities and stresses that Hamas uses Gaza’s civilians as human shields, fighting from civilian areas including homes, hospitals, schools, and mosques.
