JERUSALEM, Aug 31, 2026 (BSS/AFP) - Israeli airstrikes killed five people west of Gaza City on Monday, a Gaza hospital and rescuers said, while the Israeli army said it targeted Hamas "military operatives".

Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City said Monday morning it received two bodies "following an Israeli airstrike that targeted the entrance of a residential building near the municipal park in Gaza City".

Later in the day, the hospital said it received three additional bodies and several wounded "as a result of an Israeli drone strike that targeted a civilian car in the Tel al-Hawa neighbourhood, southwest of Gaza City".

The civil defence, which operates as a rescue service under Hamas authority, confirmed to AFP the toll in the two strikes.

Images shared by the civil defence showed workers inspecting the car targeted in the second strike, completely destroyed and reduced to a blackened shell of warped metal, with a crowd of bystanders gathered around it.

When contacted by AFP, the Israeli military said that in both strikes it "attacked operatives from Hamas's military wing", the Ezzedine Al-Qassam brigades, and said it would provide further details later on.

Despite a US-backed ceasefire that took effect in October 2025, violence has not halted in the Gaza Strip, with Israel continuing to target Palestinians it says are militants.

Israel has insisted it must eliminate threats from Hamas, whose unprecedented October 7, 2023 attack against Israel sparked the war in Gaza.

Israeli operations in Gaza have killed at least 1,318 people since the ceasefire came into effect, according to the Palestinian territory's health ministry, which also operates under Hamas authority and whose figures are considered reliable by the United Nations.

The Israeli army has reported five deaths in its ranks over the same period, as well as the death of one civilian contractor.