IDF fire said to kill 7 in Gaza, including terror operative, aid worker and child

Israeli strikes and gunfire reportedly killed at least seven people in Gaza on Tuesday, including a terror operative, an Egyptian aid worker and a child.

Medics said an Israeli airstrike killed a man and wounded two children in the Mawasi area of Khan Younis in southern Gaza. The Israel Defense Forces told Reuters it had targeted a Hamas terrorist.

A second Israeli airstrike hit near a tent encampment housing displaced families in western Gaza City, killing one person and wounding five others, medics said, while a third airstrike in Khan Younis killed one person and wounded three others.

The Israeli military said both of those strikes had also targeted terrorists.

The Popular Resistance Committees, a terror group that has long carried out armed attacks against Israel, said one of the two IDF strikes in Khan Younis had killed a senior leader of the terror group, Waheed Abu Salem.

Later on Tuesday, one Palestinian was killed, and nine others were wounded by Israeli gunfire in an area of Rafah in the south of Gaza, medics and witnesses said.

Meanwhile, in Gaza City’s Tel Al-Hawa neighbourhood, an Israeli airstrike hit a vehicle, killing three people, including a child, medics said, taking Tuesday’s death toll across the Gaza Strip to at least seven.

Gaza media outlets affiliated with Hamas reported that Mohammed al-Wahidi, the public relations director of the Egyptian Committee for Aid to Gaza, an Egyptian organization that assists Gazans, was killed in the strike.

According to some reports, two other people were killed along with him.

The Israeli military did not immediately comment on the last two incidents.

The IDF and Shin Bet announced separately on Tuesday that they had killed a Hamas Nukhba Force commander and a commander in the terror group’s intelligence division in recent strikes in the Gaza Strip.

One of those strikes was on Sunday in northern Gaza and killed Ahmad Yahya Ibrahim Batsh, a commander of a Nukhba Force cell, according to the military.

The IDF said Batsh had recently been working to advance attacks on troops in Gaza.

A separate strike on Monday in southern Gaza killed Hamouda Abu Daqa, who served as an intelligence commander, according to the military.

The IDF said Abu Daqa was involved in collecting intelligence on troops to advance attacks, and therefore, he posed a threat.

The announcement came after the military said Monday night that it had killed a commander in Hamas’s training division, Fadi Daghmash, who had been advancing attacks.

The IDF in recent months has been ramping up strikes on terror operatives in Gaza, saying they posed a threat to Israeli forces inside the more than half of the Strip held by the IDF.

Amid the strikes, the Hamas government in Gaza on Monday announced the resignation of the so-called “Emergency Committee” — the Hamas-led administration that governs the Strip — in preparation for the transfer of authority to the technocratic National Committee for the Administration of Gaza.

A Palestinian source familiar with the matter told The Times of Israel that the move by Hamas is aimed at turning Hamas’s existing governing structure into a caretaker framework, while increasing pressure on the Board of Peace and Israel to allow the NCAG to enter Gaza.

Last month, diplomats from each of the Middle Eastern mediating countries — Egypt, Qatar and Turkey — told The Times of Israel that Hamas has sought to drag out negotiations on the issue of disarmament, which it has so far refused to do.

They also argued that Israel’s refusal to adhere to the terms of the first phase of the October 2025 Gaza ceasefire has posed a major obstacle to advancing plans for the Strip as well.

Six reported hurt in settler attack in South Hebron Hills

In the West Bank, Palestinian media reported on Tuesday that six Palestinians were injured by settlers in the village of Umm al-Khair in the South Hebron Hills.

Footage published from the scene shows Palestinians and settlers engaged in a physical confrontation, apparently in the area where Umm al-Khair and the nearby settlement of Carmel border each other.

No further details about the incident were available.

شبان يتصدّون لهجوم المستوطنين على خربة أم الخير في مسافر يطا، جنوب الخليل. pic.twitter.com/pGcI9FXTbI

— شبكة قدس الإخبارية (@qudsn) July 5, 2026

Palestinian media also reported that settlers set fire on Monday night to a structure in the village of Surif, also near Hebron.

Footage published online appears to show four people standing next to the structure before setting it ablaze.

No injuries were reported.

مليشيات المستوطنين تهاجم قرية صوريف شمال الخليل وتحرق منشأة بعد منتصف الليلة pic.twitter.com/fvBNZk7QSh

— شبكة قدس الإخبارية (@qudsn) July 6, 2026

Netanyahu faults ‘lenient courts’ for unchecked settler violence

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appeared to fault Israel’s courts for letting violent settlers off the hook.

“It’s a tightly knit group that tries to skirt the law, and when we bring them to the courts, our courts are very lenient. I don’t know why. Maybe because they’re young, and I’ve said that we have to challenge that, and I don’t accept it,” Netanyahu said when asked about the rampant, unchecked violence during a CNN interview.

He insisted that those behind attacks on Palestinians, which take place on a near-daily basis, are not from the settlements, but rather are some 100 to 150 “juvenile delinquents” from outside of the West Bank.

However, activists on the ground said those behind the attacks are Israelis who have established illegal outposts throughout the West Bank in record numbers over the past three years. Netanyahu’s government has provided significant funding and protection to these wildcat communities, which critics say are being used as a tool to dispossess Palestinians of their lands.

CNN’s Dana Bash presses Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on why settler violence in the West Bank hasn’t ended. pic.twitter.com/JbqzHhOqQN

— Inside Politics (@InsidePolitics) July 7, 2026

While Netanyahu placed the number of violent offenders at 100 to 150, Israel’s own security establishment reportedly believes the numbers are much higher. When Netanyahu was asked about the phenomenon last year, he downplayed it as one caused by “about 70 kids.”

Israel has come under fire for rarely carrying out arrests in instances of settler violence, with indictments and convictions even more infrequent.

Shin Bet figures from earlier this year found that three times more Palestinians were victims of terror attacks in the West Bank than Jews.

Netanyahu, in the CNN interview, insisted that Israel is taking the issue seriously.

“We have real investigations. Israel is a transparent country. You can’t hide crimes in the military, you cannot hide crimes in the police… We’ll take care of it because that’s the kind of country we are,” he said. “This is blown up beyond belief and causes a lot of damage. I think it’s wrong on its own account. I don’t accept vigilantism, and I don’t care if it comes from Arabs or Jews.”

Netanyahu was then pressed on whether he’ll commit to seeking justice for 20-year-old Palestinian-American Sayfollah Musallet, who was allegedly beaten to death by settlers last year.

The premier said he wasn’t aware of the incident, but will look into it.