Some 20 armed Hamas terror operatives, who attempted to carry out a raid on Friday morning against other Gazans in an Israeli-designated “humanitarian zone” in the Khan Younis area of southern Gaza, were killed in drone strikes, the military said.
The confirmation from the Israel Defense Forces came after the leader of a rival armed group in Gaza told The Times of Israel that his forces had thwarted a Hamas attack in Khan Younis with Israeli military assistance.
Hossam al-Astal, who leads the armed group east of Khan Younis, said that it thwarted a Hamas attack on a family with which Hamas is in dispute on Friday morning in the Mawasi area of Khan Younis, with air support from the IDF.
The Israeli military did not mention the armed group in its statement, but confirmed it thwarted an attack on “Gazan residents” in the area.
The IDF said that after the drone strikes, several Hamas operatives were seen trying to use Palestinian children as human shields. It published footage that purported to show the gunmen dragging children with them.
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The gunmen using human shields were killed in separate strikes minutes later, without harm being caused to the civilians, the military added.
The IDF issued footage of the strikes, which it said killed some 20 Hamas operatives.
תיעוד: כוחות צה”ל חיסלו חוליית מחבלים מארגון הטרור חמאס שתכננה לבצע פשיטה למרחב הומניטרי בחאן יונס בו שוהים תושבים עזתים
היום, כלי טיס של חיל האוויר, בהכוונת אוגדת עזה (143), אמ״ן ושב”כ, חיסל חוליה חמושה של כ-20 מחבלים מארגון הטרור חמאס שניסתה לבצע פשיטה נגד תושבים עזתים ששהו… pic.twitter.com/nUjvIHsQ4A
— צבא ההגנה לישראל (@idfonline) October 3, 2025
Al-Astal said that at 6 a.m., Hamas operatives arrived in al-Mawasi and opened fire, launching RPGs toward an area where members of the al-Majaida family, whom the terror group was targeting, were present.
The al-Majaida family has been warring with Hamas for several weeks, ever since operatives shot several family members in the leg for unclear reasons, al-Astal said. He said the group has also claimed the family is collaborating with Israel and stealing humanitarian aid.
He said his forces came to the family’s assistance, and with the help of Israeli air support, they were able to strike the entire Hamas unit.
Eleven Hamas operatives were killed and six were seriously wounded, he said, and one member of the Majaida family who fought against them was also killed. His own forces sustained no casualties, he said.
Social media accounts affiliated with Hamas also reported on the attack, but claimed that although members of Hamas’s armed wing were killed, Hamas managed to kill several members of the al-Majaida family, whom they accused of collaborating with Israel.
Hossam al-Astal (center) is seen surrounded by armed members of his group, ‘Strike Force Against Terror,’ in an undated picture from the Gaza Strip posted on Facebook. (Courtesy: Hossam al-Astal via Facebook)
Al-Astal published photos on his Facebook page of the alleged Hamas operatives killed in the foiled attack, some wearing military vests and the headbands of Hamas’s armed wing.
This was the first reported case of a Hamas attack in Gaza being openly thwarted by a Palestinian armed group, albeit with IDF assistance.
In recent weeks, there have been repeated attempts by Hamas to prevent Palestinian civilians from heading to the humanitarian area in southern Gaza, the military said Friday.
According to the IDF’s latest estimates, more than 870,000 Palestinians have evacuated Gaza City to the Strip’s south, out of around a million who were residing there before the army’s latest offensive against Hamas.
Displaced Palestinians walk through a tent camp in al-Mawasi, an area that Israel has designated as a safe zone, in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, September 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)
Al-Astal’s armed group is not the only anti-Hamas militia operating in Gaza. Another group is led by Yasser Abu Shabab, a Bedouin commander who has been active for months in Rafah, south of Khan Younis on the Strip’s border with Egypt. Abu Shabab’s forces have drawn thousands of residents to an area under its control in eastern Rafah, where they run rudimentary schools, clinics, and public kitchens. Fighters and Israeli defense sources have confirmed that the group received military equipment from Israel.
Hamas operatives killed in strike
Separately on Friday, two Hamas operatives armed with an RPG and another firearm who approached troops of the Kfir Brigade in Gaza City were killed in a drone strike, the military said, publishing footage of the incident.
According to the IDF, during scans by troops in the area using a drone, two armed operatives were spotted approaching them.
The troops then called in an Israeli Air Force Hermes 450 UAV to strike them.
UN: Israel-designated zones in south Gaza are ‘places of death’
Meanwhile, the United Nations insisted Friday there is no safe place for Palestinians ordered to leave Gaza City and that Israel-designated humanitarian zones in the south are “places of death.”
“The notion of a safe zone in the south is farcical,” UNICEF spokesman James Elder told reporters in Geneva, speaking from the Gaza Strip, pointing out that “bombs are dropped from the sky with chilling predictability; schools, which had been designated as temporary shelters are regularly reduced to rubble, (and) tents… are regularly engulfed in fire from air attacks.”
Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have fled Gaza City in recent weeks amid a new IDF offensive there. The military has urged them to move south, to a newly established humanitarian zone in Khan Younis.
The IDF, during the war, has declared several “humanitarian zones” in southern Gaza, where most aid is directed to and no ground operations are carried out.
Displaced Palestinians flee northern Gaza carrying their belongings along the coastal road near Wadi Gaza, Oct. 2, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
However, airstrikes against Hamas targets — including rocket launchers and the terror group’s top military commander, Muhammad Deif — have been conducted in the humanitarian zones, with the IDF saying it takes extra precautions to mitigate civilian harm when attacking there.
The ongoing war erupted when Hamas-led terrorists rampaged through southern Israel on October 7, 2023, murdering some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking 251 hostages.
The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says more than 66,000 people in the Strip have been killed or are presumed dead in the fighting so far, though the toll cannot be verified and does not differentiate between civilians and fighters. Israel says it has killed over 22,000 combatants in battle as of August and another 1,600 terrorists inside Israel during the October 7 onslaught.
On Monday, US President Donald Trump presented a ceasefire-hostage deal proposal that would end the war in a joint press conference at the White House with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who accepted the offer.
The deal is supported by European, Arab, and Muslim countries, as well as the PA. Hamas has yet to formally respond to the offer. Trump said Tuesday that the terror group would have “three or four” days to do so.
Agencies and Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.