Abu Obeida’s last statement came on Friday, as Israel began the initial stages of a new military offensive in Gaza City, declaring the area a combat zone. Hamas has not commented on Israel’s claim
Abu Obeida. PIC/ X
Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz announced Sunday that a spokesperson for Hamas' armed wing, Abu Obeida, was killed in Gaza over the weekend.
Obeida’s last statement came on Friday, as Israel began the initial stages of a new military offensive in Gaza City, declaring the area a combat zone. Hamas has not commented on Israel’s claim.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier said Israel had attacked Obeida, the longtime spokesperson for Hamas’s Qassam Brigades, but did not know whether he had been killed.
“I do notice there is no one addressing this question on the Hamas side,” Netanyahu told ministers at a weekly cabinet meeting.
Obeida is the latest Hamas representative targeted and killed by Israel as it attempts to dismantle the group’s military capacity and prevent another attack like that of October 7, 2023, when militants abducted 251 people and killed around 1,200, mostly civilians. Israel has assassinated many of Hamas’ top military and political leaders.
'A death trap'
At least 43 Palestinians have been killed since Saturday, most of them in Gaza City, according to local hospitals. Shifa Hospital — the territory’s largest — said 29 bodies had been brought to its morgue, including 10 people killed while seeking aid and others struck across the city.
On Sunday morning, hospital officials reported 11 more fatalities from strikes and gunfire. Al-Awda Hospital said seven of the dead were civilians trying to reach aid.
Witnesses said Israeli troops opened fire on crowds in the Netzarim Corridor, an Israeli military zone that bisects Gaza.
“We were trying to get food, but we were met with the occupation’s bullets,” said Ragheb Abu Lebda, from Nuseirat, who saw at least three people bleeding from gunshot wounds. “It’s a death trap.”
The corridor has become increasingly perilous, with civilians killed while approaching UN convoys, overwhelmed by looters and desperate crowds, or shot on their way to sites run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, an Israeli-backed US contractor. Neither the foundation nor the Israeli military responded to questions about Sunday’s casualties.
Malnutrition and displacement
Israel has for weeks been operating on the outskirts of Gaza City as well as the Jabaliya refugee camp to prepare for the initial stages of its offensive, which it announced Friday. Its military has since intensified air attacks in coastal areas of the city, including Rimal.
Its Arabic-language army spokesperson has urged the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians still in Gaza City to flee south, but only tens of thousands have done so. Many say they are too exhausted after repeated displacements or are unconvinced that anywhere is safer.
The United Nations says roughly 65,000 Palestinians have fled their homes since August 1, including 23,199 in the past week. Many are living in temporary shelters after multiple displacements. More than 90 per cent of Gaza’s 2.1 million residents have been displaced at least once during the war, and many multiple times, according to the UN.
Israel has announced new infrastructure projects in southern Gaza and signalled that aid to Gaza City could be cut, steps Palestinians say amount to forced displacement.
Seven Palestinian adults died of malnutrition-related causes in the Gaza Strip over the past 24 hours, the territory’s health ministry reported Sunday. That brings the death toll from malnutrition-related causes to 215 since late June, when the ministry began tracking fatalities among adults, it said.
Another 124 children have died of malnutrition-related causes since the start of the war in October 2023, according to the ministry.
At least 63,371 Palestinians have died in Gaza during the war, the ministry said. It does not specify how many were fighters or civilians, but estimates that about half were women and children.
The ministry is part of the Hamas-run government and staffed by medical professionals. The UN and independent experts consider it the most reliable source on war casualties. Israel disputes the figures but has not provided its own.
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