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Israeli Strikes Kill Five People in Gaza

Mourners carry a body during the funeral of Palestinians who were killed in an Israeli strike, according to medics, in Gaza City, May 17, 2026. REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas
Mourners carry a body during the funeral of Palestinians who were killed in an Israeli strike, according to medics, in Gaza City, May 17, 2026. REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas
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Israeli Strikes Kill Five People in Gaza

Mourners carry a body during the funeral of Palestinians who were killed in an Israeli strike, according to medics, in Gaza City, May 17, 2026. REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas
Mourners carry a body during the funeral of Palestinians who were killed in an Israeli strike, according to medics, in Gaza City, May 17, 2026. REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas

Israeli strikes killed at least five Palestinians in the Gaza Strip on Sunday, health officials said, as ceasefire efforts meant to end fighting between Israel and Hamas falter.

In the weeks since halting its joint bombing with the US in Iran, Israel has stepped up its attacks in Gaza, where Hamas has been tightening its grip, even as Israeli troops remain in control of more than half the territory.

Medics said an Israeli strike killed one Palestinian near a police ⁠post and another ⁠at a tent encampment in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip. The Israeli military said it killed a militant who posed an immediate threat to forces in the area.

Separately, Gaza medics said another Israeli airstrike killed at least three people at a community kitchen near Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir Al-Balah, in the central Gaza area. The Israeli military did not immediately ⁠comment on that incident.

On Saturday, the Israeli military said that Izz al-Din al-Haddad, the head of Hamas' armed wing in Gaza, was killed in what it described as a precise strike on Gaza City on Friday.

Hamas confirmed Haddad's death but stopped short of threatening revenge.

The Israeli military said it had also killed Bahaa Baroud, a Hamas Operations Headquarters commander, in an airstrike on Saturday, accusing him of planning multiple imminent attacks against troops and Israeli civilians in recent weeks.

According to Reuters, the military said Baroud posed an immediate threat and was targeted in a precise strike, adding ⁠that measures ⁠were taken beforehand to reduce civilian harm, including the use of precision munitions and aerial surveillance.

Gaza health officials said Baroud, along with another person, was killed in the airstrike, which targeted their car in Gaza City.

Israel and Hamas remain deadlocked in indirect talks to advance US President Donald Trump's post-war plan for Gaza that is meant to end more than two years of fighting with Hamas disarming as Israeli troops withdraw from Gaza.

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Arab World

Israel Strikes Lebanon as Hezbollah Calls Talks 'Dead End'

Smoke rises from the site of an Israeli airstrike that targeted the southern Lebanese village of Choukine on May 17, 2026. Photo by Abbas FAKIH / AFP
Smoke rises from the site of an Israeli airstrike that targeted the southern Lebanese village of Choukine on May 17, 2026. Photo by Abbas FAKIH / AFP
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Israel Strikes Lebanon as Hezbollah Calls Talks 'Dead End'

Smoke rises from the site of an Israeli airstrike that targeted the southern Lebanese village of Choukine on May 17, 2026. Photo by Abbas FAKIH / AFP
Smoke rises from the site of an Israeli airstrike that targeted the southern Lebanese village of Choukine on May 17, 2026. Photo by Abbas FAKIH / AFP

Israel struck eastern and southern Lebanon on Sunday, state media reported, despite a fragile ceasefire as Hezbollah called US-brokered talks between the two countries a "dead end".

Two Israeli strikes hit the town of Sohmor in eastern Lebanon's Bekaa valley, the state-run National News Agency (NNA) said, adding that others took place across southern Lebanon.

The Israeli army later issued an evacuation warning to four villages near the southern coastal city of Sidon, dozens of kilometres from the border area, which were also subject to an evacuation warning on Saturday, AFP reported.

Israeli airstrikes hit three of the four villages following the warning, the NNA said.

Despite the ceasefire, Israel continues to strike widely in southern Lebanon and issues frequent evacuation warnings to towns and villages across the south.

Speaking at the start of a cabinet meeting on Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel was "holding territory, clearing territory, protecting Israel's communities, but also fighting an enemy that is trying to outsmart us".

"We are facing the challenge of neutralizing FPV (First-Person view) drones," he said, as Hezbollah has increasingly made use of the drones to strike Israeli forces.

The latest exchanges of fire came after envoys from Israel and Lebanon held a third round of negotiations in Washington and agreed to extend the ceasefire, talks that Iran-backed Hezbollah has repeatedly denounced.

"The direct negotiations that the authorities in Lebanon have conducted with the Israeli enemy have... led them down a dead-end path that will result in nothing but one concession after another," Hezbollah lawmaker Hussein Hajj Hassan said on Sunday.

"Neither they nor anyone else will be able to carry out what the enemy wants, especially when it comes to the issue of disarming the resistance," he said, adding that authorities were creating "very big predicaments" for the country.

In a statement on Saturday, the group called the proposed establishment of a US-facilitated security track a fresh addition "to the series of free concessions" the Lebanese government "offers the enemy".

On Saturday the group also said it had struck a military target in northern Israel, having earlier announced several operations against Israeli forces in southern Lebanon.

Israel sent ground forces into southern Lebanon during the latest war and they continue to occupy territory near the border between the two countries.

Israeli attacks since the start of the war have killed more than 2,900 people in Lebanon, including more than 400 since the truce began on April 17, according to Lebanese authorities.

Arab World

Palestinian President's Son Elected to Top Fatah Leadership Body

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas with his son Yasser in Ramallah, West Bank, on May 28, 2018 (Reuters file photo)
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas with his son Yasser in Ramallah, West Bank, on May 28, 2018 (Reuters file photo)
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Palestinian President's Son Elected to Top Fatah Leadership Body

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas with his son Yasser in Ramallah, West Bank, on May 28, 2018 (Reuters file photo)
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas with his son Yasser in Ramallah, West Bank, on May 28, 2018 (Reuters file photo)

The son of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas won a seat on Fatah's top decision-making body on Sunday, as initial results emerged from the Palestinian movement's first congress in years.

Yasser Abbas, 64, a businessman who spends most of his time in Canada, secured a place on the central committee after being appointed around five years ago as his father's "special representative" - a role that marked his gradual emergence on the political scene.

Jailed Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti topped the preliminary results, retaining his seat on the committee with the highest number of votes, according to figures seen by AFP.

Jibril Rajoub was reelected as the secretary-general of the committee, retaining the seat he has held since 2017.

Palestinian vice president Hussein Al-Sheikh, Fatah deputy leader Mahmoud Al-Aloul and ex-Palestinian intelligence chief Tawfiq Tirawi also held their seats on the body.

Among the newcomers was Zakaria Zubeidi, 50, a former commander of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades -- Fatah's armed wing in the Jenin refugee camp -- who was freed from Israeli prison last year under a prisoner exchange deal with Hamas.

Two women also won seats, including Ramallah governor Laila Ghannam.

The three-day congress, held simultaneously across Ramallah, Gaza, Cairo and Beirut, drew 2,507 voters -- a turnout of 94.64 percent, organisers said.

Fifty-nine candidates competed for 18 seats on the central committee, while 450 vied for 80 seats on the revolutionary council, the party's parliament.

Counting for the council was still under way.

The congress opened Thursday, with Abbas being reelected as head of the movement.
In his opening address, he vowed to pursue reforms and hold long-delayed presidential and parliamentary elections.

Arab World

Gaza Talks Face Fallout from Haddad Killing

Palestinians walk amid the rubble of destroyed buildings in Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip (AFP)
Palestinians walk amid the rubble of destroyed buildings in Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip (AFP)
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Gaza Talks Face Fallout from Haddad Killing

Palestinians walk amid the rubble of destroyed buildings in Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip (AFP)
Palestinians walk amid the rubble of destroyed buildings in Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip (AFP)

An Egyptian source told Asharq Al-Awsat on Saturday that mediators were continuing their efforts to implement the ceasefire agreement in Gaza, and that contacts had not stopped in order to prevent any deliberate disruption of negotiations by Israel after its latest “unacceptable” escalation in the enclave.

Sources from Hamas had earlier told Asharq Al-Awsat on Saturday that Izz al-Din al-Haddad, the commander-in-chief of the Qassam Brigades, the movement’s armed wing, had been killed in an Israeli strike that targeted him in Gaza City on Friday evening.

They said the attack on a residential apartment in the Rimal neighborhood of Gaza City had targeted Haddad.

Experts who spoke to Asharq Al-Awsat said this “escalation” by Israel places mediators before a difficult task and limited scenarios.

They said the “Gaza agreement” faces possible outcomes linked to a temporary halt in negotiations aimed at breaking the deadlock, or a complete obstruction of talks if Israel expands its escalation, intensifies assassinations and seizes more land in the enclave, potentially leading to a return to war, especially as the US position has not yet moved to deter Israel.

New operation

The assassination of Haddad came as Hamas was completing the election of its new political bureau chief.

The operation also followed rounds of talks hosted by Cairo over several weeks, with the participation of the High Representative of the Board of Peace in the enclave, Nickolay Mladenov, who had asked the movement days before the operation to hand over its weapons after visiting Tel Aviv and meeting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Dr. Tarek Fahmy, a professor of political science specializing in Palestinian and Israeli affairs, said the assassination confirms Israel’s lack of commitment to agreements.

He said Israel seeks to confuse Hamas’s internal scene as the movement prepares to carry out internal and external changes, and that the strike carries a message from Netanyahu to a politically troubled Israeli public, aimed at boosting his popularity and achieving electoral and political goals, before directly affecting the negotiations and their credibility.

Palestinian political analyst Dr. Ayman al-Raqab said Netanyahu had carried out the operation to save himself electorally amid domestic setbacks, and to try to impose heavy pressure on Hamas amid US distraction and silence over what is happening in the enclave.

Widening violations

The targeting is not the only step Israel is pursuing amid US silence.

The Israeli newspaper Israel Hayom reported on Wednesday that “the security zones in Gaza have been expanded by an additional 34 square kilometers, with the approval of the Board of Peace, after Hamas failed to implement commitments related to disarmament, and Israel now controls about 64 percent of the enclave’s area.”

Fahmy said the latest operation leaves mediators facing limited scenarios. The first is continued Israeli escalation and further assassinations that could include members of Hamas’s political bureau abroad, or an expansion of control inside the enclave, along with the continuation of military action and the occupation of the entire Gaza Strip.

He said the escalation would obstruct negotiations amid US silence, or lead to a temporary pause in talks without mediators halting their contacts, especially as the operation opens the way for the rise of more hardline leaders within Hamas.

Raqab expected Hamas to show reservations about returning to negotiations for now, though he said this would be temporary, especially as the movement has no alternatives or ability to engage in a military confrontation.

He said mediators face an extremely difficult task, but will continue trying to salvage what can be salvaged to return quickly to negotiations, with intensive contacts with Washington to intervene and curb Israel’s possible escalation.