JERUSALEM: Israel said on Sunday its forces had struck a senior militant from Hamas’s military wing, which confirmed the death of one of its commanders in Gaza.

Samir Abu Younis, who played a key role in planning Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, was killed on Saturday, according to a statement from the movement’s Al-Qassam Brigades.

“A short while ago, the IDF and ISA struck a senior terrorist in Hamas’s military wing,” the Israeli military said in a joint statement with the internal security agency Shin Bet.

It said Younis had taken command of Al-Qassam’s Rafah Brigade two months earlier after his predecessor was killed in September.

The military accused him of ordering attacks against Israeli soldiers.

“He was killed yesterday evening... in a cowardly assassination operation,” the Al-Qassam Brigades posted on Telegram.

It said Younis was “among the most important commanders involved in the planning and supervision of the 7 October attack.”

A security source told AFP shortly after midnight that Younis died in a strike “targeting him moments ago in Al-Mawasi, west of Khan Younis.”

Gaza’s civil defense spokesman, Mahmoud Bassal, told AFP the agency had received the body of Younis, 53, and said two people were wounded in the strike in Gaza’s south.

At his funeral on Sunday afternoon, a crowd was gathered around the body, which was wrapped in a green Hamas flag with a weapon placed on top, AFP footage showed.

Israel and Hamas have accused each other of violating the ceasefire that came into effect in October 2025, after two years of war triggered by the October 7 attack.

While the US-backed truce has largely subdued the fighting, Israel has kept up regular strikes in the territory.

- Deadliest day -

In recent days, attacks appear to have intensified in Gaza’s south, according to AFP journalists.

Six people were killed on Thursday in a bombing at Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis, while seven others died elsewhere in the strip, according to Palestinian emergency services.

The 13 deaths made it the deadliest day in Gaza since Israeli legislative elections on October 27.

Israel’s military said the strike on the hospital targeted a senior Hamas official and other members of the group’s armed wing, which it accused of using the facility as a command center.

Israel has long accused Hamas of using medical sites for military purposes, which the Palestinian movement denies.

Since the start of the ceasefire, more than 1,600 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, according to an AFP tally based on data from the territory’s health ministry, which operates under Hamas authority and whose figures are considered reliable by the UN.

During the same period, the Israeli military has reported the loss of seven soldiers, as well as one civilian contractor.

Former Israeli army chief Gadi Eisenkot is currently locked in negotiations to form a governing coalition, but his rival, caretaker Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, remains responsible for the country’s military operations.