The premier said in a statement that the target was the head of Hamas’s internal security apparatus in Gaza, without giving more details. Israeli media identified him as Muein al-Arabid.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israeli forces captured a senior Hamas figure on Tuesday during a ground operation in Gaza that Palestinian health officials said killed four people.

The premier said in a statement that the target was the head of Hamas’s internal security apparatus in Gaza, without giving more details. Israeli media identified him as Muein al-Arabid. 

The army and Shin Bet domestic security service said in a joint statement that the target had “recently worked to consolidate the Hamas terrorist organization’s control over the northern Gaza Strip and to advance terrorist attacks against IDF troops”.

They added that he had been transferred to Israel for further questioning.

In tandem with the ground operation, Israel “struck several targets in the area in order to remove threats” to its forces, the statement said.

The forces included an Israeli-allied militia inside the Strip, a Gaza security source told AFP.

Eyewitnesses reported around a dozen strikes on Tuesday morning in western Gaza City, where the territory’s civil defence agency said three children and a woman were killed — Arabid’s wife, according to Palestinian media.

Gaza City’s Al-Shifa Hospital confirmed the toll given by the civil defence, which operates as a rescue force under Hamas.

AFP footage from the aftermath of the strikes showed the bodies of two children wrapped in shrouds being carried through the streets, where the mangled wreckage of a vehicle lay.

“A jeep stopped in the middle of the street and started firing indiscriminately left and right. It carried on firing at us like rain for more than 15 minutes,” Wafika al-Helou told AFP, describing a “terrifying and unbearable” scene.

Another eyewitness, Mutaz Abu Asr, spoke of gunfire and drones, describing more than five strikes in less than three minutes.

– Two more killed –

A security source in Gaza told AFP the Israeli mission against a prominent Hamas figure was thwarted and that special forces withdrew “on motorcycles under Israeli cover”. 

Another security source told AFP that a lower-ranking security official who was present at the scene had been abducted.

In a statement, Hamas condemned the “criminal operation” and said it “held communications with the mediators and Nickolay Mladenov”, the high representative for Gaza under the US-backed “Board of Peace” tasked with implementing an October ceasefire plan.

Separately, in the central Gaza Strip, Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Balah reported that Israeli fire killed two other people, including a girl. The civil defence confirmed the toll.

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

Israeli operations in Gaza have killed at least 1,326 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.