GAZA STRIP: Israeli strikes killed at least six more Palestinians in Gaza on Tuesday despite the Hamas move to dissolve the administration body, saying it “wants to remove any pretexts for Israel to continue its aggression and war of extermination”.

On Monday, Hamas announced the dissolution of the committee that has governed the Gaza Strip for nearly two decades in an attempt to clear the way for a technocratic committee to administer the territory.

However, Israeli forces continued the strikes on Tuesday, claiming to have targeted Hamas.

An air strike killed a man and wounded two children in the Mawasi area of Khan Yunis in southern Gaza. Another Israeli air strike targeted a tent encampment housing displaced families in western Gaza City, killing one person and wounding five others, medics said. A third air strike in Khan Yunis killed one person and wounded three others.

Strikes continue despite Hamas bid to remove pretexts for Israeli aggression

Later on Tuesday, one Palestinian was killed and nine others were wounded by Israeli gunfire in an area of Rafah in the south of Gaza, medics and witnesses said.

Meanwhile, in Gaza City’s Tel Al-Hawa neighbourhood, an Israeli air strike hit a vehicle, killing two people, medics said, taking the Tuesday’s death toll to six.

Israel has repeatedly carried out air and ground assault in Gaza, as the health ministry said more than 73,000 Palestinians have been killed in the area since October 2023.

While a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel took effect in Gaza last October, more than 1,070 Palestinians, most of them civilians, and four Israeli soldiers have been killed in Gaza, according to figures released by the two sides.

Nikolay Mladenov, US President Donald Trump’s appointed Board of Peace envoy to Gaza, has said both sides have violated the ceasefire agreement.

However, Hamas has accused Israel of violating the ceasefire repeatedly.

The Palestinian group, which has run Gaza since it seized control from the rival Palestinian movement Fatah in 2007 after winning legislative elections the previous year, in a major political shift announced on Monday that it was prepared to step aside from day-to-day governance.

Ismail al-Thawabta, head of Hamas’ media office in Gaza, said the head of the government’s emergency committee had “decided to dissolve the committee to facilitate the administrative and governmental transition to the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG)”.

Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem said the group has taken a new step in that it would no longer be in charge of the Gaza Strip, in order to remove any pretexts for the Israeli occupation, which continues its aggression and war of extermination.

However, the move by Hamas failed to deter the aggression as Israeli forces continued to carry out strikes in different parts of Gaza, claiming to have targeted Hamas.

Published in Dawn, July 8th, 2026