Five Palestinians killed in Israeli strike targeting Hamas’ Ali Al-Amoudi
Israeli occupation forces launched an airstrike on a residential apartment building in western Gaza City late Saturday in an attempt to assassinate Ali Al-Amoudi, the deputy head of Hamas’s political bureau and a leading contender for the movement’s leadership inside the Strip, medical and movement sources told Al Manassa.
The strike on the Al-Asala residential building killed five Palestinians and wounded 14 other civilians, a medical source at Al-Shifa Medical Complex told Al Manassa, contradicting claims by the Israeli military that it implemented measures to mitigate civilian harm during the bombardment.
The Israeli military announced the operation Saturday evening via a WhatsApp statement but stopped short of confirming Al-Amoudi’s death. The army branded him the “right-hand man and personal aide to former political bureau chief Yahya Sinwar” and accused him of taking part in the decision-making behind the October 7, 2023, attack.
A Hamas source told Al Manassa that Al-Amoudi recently ran in internal elections for the movement’s leadership against abroad-based official Nizar Awadallah, noting that the election results remain unresolved.
The dawn bombardment leveled sections of the building without advance evacuation warnings, witnesses said.
“We were sleeping and woke up to an earthquake hitting the building,” an eyewitness told Al Manassa. “We heard screaming, saw dust, and fire erupted across the site until a civil defense vehicle arrived. The targeted apartments housed civilian neighbors.”
Three missiles slammed into the lower floors of the building, tearing through the structure and leaving widespread destruction, the witness added.
A Hamas source declined to confirm or deny whether Al-Amoudi was inside the apartment at the time of the strike, but confirmed to Al Manassa that he remains in good health.
Hamas condemned the strike as a “brutal massacre,” accusing the Israeli occupation of pursuing a relentless war of extermination and destruction against Palestinians across the besieged enclave.
In an official statement that omitted any direct reference to the assassination attempt on Al-Amoudi, the movement demanded that mediators in Egypt, Qatar, and Turkey, alongside the US administration, shoulder their responsibilities and halt ongoing Israeli violations and crimes.
Deadly strikes continued to hit civilians across the Strip on Saturday and Sunday. Israeli attacks killed two other young Palestinian men and wounded more than 20 people in separate incidents, a source in Gaza’s Ministry of Health told Al Manassa.
An Israeli strike hit a civilian vehicle south of Deir Al-Balah in central Gaza, killing one young man and injuring 10 others. In southern Gaza, an Israeli reconnaissance drone fired a missile at a young man as he walked along a street north of Khan Younis, killing him instantly.
Israeli warplanes also launched an airstrike targeting a gathering of civilians in Beit Lahia, wounding several residents. In northern Gaza’s Al-Salatin area, gunfire wounded a woman inside a displacement tent; a family source told Al Manassa that her condition remains stable.
Israeli authorities also accuse Al-Amoudi of involvement in the 1993 killing of four settlers in the occupied West Bank and the 1994 killing of former Shin Bet officer Noam Cohen during an operation in Ramallah.
Israel views Al-Amoudi as the highest-ranking Hamas figure currently inside the Gaza Strip and holds him primarily responsible for reorganizing the movement’s military personnel for combat.
On Sunday, the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza announced that Israeli strikes have killed 1,454 Palestinians since the declaration of the October 2025 ceasefire, driving the total death toll from the genocide to 74,237.