Israeli army says killed five militants in south Gaza
The Israeli army said it killed five Palestinian militants in the southern Gaza Strip on Friday in an area under its control.
The incident came after two consecutive days of deadly air strikes in the territory, and took place on the Israeli-held side of the so-called Yellow Line, the demarcation behind which the military has withdrawn as part of a fragile US-brokered ceasefire.
"A short while ago, IDF (army) troops identified five terrorists who emerged from underground terrorist infrastructure in eastern Rafah, east of the yellow line," the military said in a statement.
"The terrorists approached IDF troops deployed in southern Gaza, posing an immediate threat to them. Subsequently, the IAF (air force) eliminated the terrorists," it added.
A Gaza hospital also told AFP that one person was killed by Israeli fire in another incident near Khan Yunis, in an area outside Israeli army control.
On Wednesday, Gaza saw one of its deadliest days since the truce between Israel and Hamas came into effect on October 10.
Twenty-seven people were killed in strikes across the territory, according to Gaza's civil defense agency, which operates under Hamas authority.
The agency said five more people were killed on Thursday.
Israel has carried out repeated strikes against what it says are Hamas targets during the ceasefire, and there have also been multiple deadly incidents of its forces firing on people approaching or crossing the Yellow Line.
According to the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza, 312 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire since the truce took hold.
The U.N. Security Council voted Monday in favor of a U.S.-drafted resolution endorsing U.S. President Donald Trump's Gaza peace plan, though Hamas rejected the resolution as failing to meet Palestinians' "political and humanitarian demands".
The war was sparked by Hamas's October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,221 people.
Israel's retaliatory assault on Gaza has killed at least 69,546 people, according to figures from the health ministry that the UN considers reliable.
Source: Agence France Presse
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