Israel kills Hamas second-in-command in Gaza City drone strike

Israel has said it killed a senior Hamas commander in a strike on a car in Gaza.

Raed Saed is believed to have helped plan the October 7 attacks and is the second-in-command of the group's armed wing in Gaza.

In a joint statement, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Israel Katz said Saed was targeted in response to an attack by Hamas in which an explosive device injured two soldiers earlier on Saturday.

It is the highest-profile assassination of a senior Hamas figure since the ceasefire deal came into effect on October 10.

In a statement, Hamas did not confirm the death of Saed in the attack on Saturday.

Instead it said a civilian vehicle had been struck outside Gaza City and asserted it was a violation of the ceasefire.

The attack on the car on Al-Rashid Al-Bahri Street killed four people, according to a journalist who saw their bodies arrive at Shifa Hospital.

Another three were wounded, according to Al-Awda hospital. There has been no confirmation from medics that Saed was among the dead. 

Saed served as the Hamas official in charge of manufacturing and previously led the militant group's operations division.

The Israeli statement described him as one of the architects of the October 7 2023 attack that sparked the war, and said that he had been 'engaged in rebuilding the terrorist organisation' in a violation of the ceasefire.

Israel and Hamas have repeatedly accused each other of truce violations.

Israeli airstrikes and shootings in Gaza have killed at least 386 Palestinians since the ceasefire took hold, according to Palestinian health officials.

Israel has said recent strikes are in retaliation for militant attacks against its soldiers, and that troops have fired on Palestinians who approached the 'Yellow Line' between the Israeli-controlled majority of Gaza and the rest of the territory.

Israel has demanded that Palestinian militants return the remains of the final hostage, Ran Gvili, from Gaza and called it a condition of moving to the second and more complicated phase of the ceasefire.

That lays out a vision for ending Hamas' rule and seeing the rebuilding of a demilitarised Gaza under international supervision.

The initial Hamas-led 2023 attack on southern Israel killed around 1,200 people and took 251 hostages.

Almost all hostages or their remains have been returned in ceasefires or other deals.

Israel's two-year campaign in Gaza has killed more than 70,650 Palestinians, roughly half of them women and children, according to the territory's Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between militants and civilians in its count.