Israel says six Gaza militants killed in three strikes around Khan Younis

Israel's military and its domestic security service say they killed six members of armed Palestinian groups in three separate strikes in the Khan Younis area of the southern Gaza Strip earlier this week. In a joint statement from the IDF spokesperson, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and the Israel Security Agency (ISA), better known as the Shin Bet, said two of the men were killed in two strikes on Monday and the other four in a single strike on Sunday.

The army said those killed belonged to Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and a smaller faction called the Army of Islam. In its post on X, the IDF accused the men of recently pushing forward plans to attack Israeli civilians and soldiers and of working to rebuild the capabilities of their organisations, and said they were targeted to remove the threat they posed. Hebrew outlets Ynet and N12 carried the announcement shortly after it was issued.

Who Israel says was killed

According to the military, the Monday strikes killed two men:

• Mahmoud Jihad Mohammad Qafa, described by the IDF as the head of a sniper cell in the military wing of Hamas.
• Asaad Suleiman Salman Qashta, identified as a member of the Army of Islam who, in the army's words, "facilitated smuggling into the Gaza Strip."

The Times of Israel reported the four names the IDF and Shin Bet gave for the Sunday strike:

• Mohammad Zakaria Al-Jamal, said to command a Hamas cell.
• Mohammad Amin Al-Namas, described as a Hamas operative.
• Shaher Mohammad Zaarab, said to be a company commander in the Nukhba Force, the unit Hamas treats as its elite.
• Mohammad Ali Abu Shaar, named as a sniper in Islamic Jihad.

The names and roles come solely from the Israeli announcement. English renderings of the location vary between reports: the IDF statement spells it Khan Yunis, while the Times of Israel uses Khan Younis. Both refer to the same city.

The bodies behind the announcement

The IDF is Israel's military. The Shin Bet, formally the Israel Security Agency, is the internal security service responsible for counterterrorism intelligence, including in Gaza. Joint statements from the two are common when a strike relies on intelligence gathered by the Shin Bet and is carried out by the army.

Khan Younis is a city in the south of the Gaza Strip, the coastal territory that Hamas has governed. Palestinian Islamic Jihad is a separate armed group that often operates alongside Hamas. The Army of Islam is a smaller faction; the IDF linked the man it named from that group to smuggling rather than to direct attacks.

The ceasefire claim

Both the Telegram statement and the X post frame the strikes against a ceasefire that is in force in Gaza. According to the Times of Israel, the IDF said the operatives had acted "in systematic violation of the ceasefire." Israel has presented strikes of this kind as responses to threats it says militant groups pose despite the truce, and this announcement follows that pattern.

Hebrew-language coverage summarised the event slightly differently. Ynet's alert described the dead as fighters from Hamas and Islamic Jihad without mentioning the Army of Islam, while N12 highlighted the head of the Hamas sniper cell. These are differences of emphasis rather than of substance: none of the reports contradicts the total of six or the split between the Sunday and Monday strikes.

What the reports do not say

None of the reports includes a response from Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the Army of Islam or Gaza health authorities, and none says whether anyone else was killed or wounded in the three strikes. The IDF has not published evidence for its statement that the men were planning attacks, and the reports do not give precise locations within Khan Younis or explain why the strikes were announced only days after they took place.