Mourning Palestinians attend a mass funeral in the Nuseirat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip on September 29, 2026, after 41 bodies were recovered from the rubble of a residential building hit by an Israeli airstrike early in the war in October 2023. (Credit: Eyad Baba/AFP)
Five people were killed in an Israeli airstrike on a bus in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, according to the Palestinian territory’s Civil Defense, AFP reported.
The Civil Defense, which operates under the authority of Hamas, said the strike targeted a bus in Tel al-Hawa, in western Gaza City.
"There were five martyrs and 20 wounded, including a number of children and women, following an Israeli airstrike that targeted a bus in Tel al-Hawa," Civil Defense spokesman Mahmoud Bassal told AFP.
The bus was carrying civilians between Gaza City and areas in central and southern Gaza, Bassal said. It was hit by "two missiles fired by Israeli drones," destroying its front section and setting the vehicle ablaze, he added.
Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City confirmed that five bodies and several wounded people were brought to the facility following the strike.
The Israeli army did not immediately respond to an AFP request for comment.
The war in Gaza began after Hamas’ unprecedented Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel, which killed 1,221 people, according to official Israeli figures. The ensuing Israeli military campaign has killed nearly 74,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, whose figures are considered reliable by the United Nations.
More than 1,400 people have been killed by Israeli forces in Gaza since a ceasefire was announced in October 2025, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. The Israeli army has reported five deaths among its forces during the same period, as well as the death of a civilian contractor.
1 p.m. recap: Iran receives official response from Washington to Hormuz offer; incident on Dubai-Tel Aviv flight; civil servant strike in Lebanon