# IDF says five militants were killed in northern Gaza tunnel-work strike

The Israeli military said it killed five militants in northern Gaza on the event date of 2026-07-06, after striking what it described as an attempt to restore underground infrastructure west of the Yellow Line.

According to the supplied source, the strike killed Hudhayfah Hussein Abdullah al-Hawajri, whom the IDF identified as a Hamas Nukhba operative from the East Jabalia Battalion. The report says additional terrorists were also hit. The source also states that the strike took place after the military determined the group was working to rebuild underground terror infrastructure in the northern Gaza Strip.

The report is careful to note the IDF’s own framing. It says troops under Southern Command remain deployed in the area in line with the ceasefire agreement and will continue to operate to remove any immediate threat. It also says the military used precise munitions and aerial surveillance to reduce the risk to civilians before launching the strike.

Because the evidence packet includes only one source and that source is the Israeli military’s account carried by Israel National News, the article has to avoid adopting disputed claims as settled fact. The report’s use of terms such as “terrorists” and “underground terror infrastructure” reflects the IDF’s description, not an independently verified battlefield assessment. No counterstatement is included in the packet.

What is supported is that the IDF said it hit five people, named one as al-Hawajri, and tied the strike to alleged attempts to restore subterranean infrastructure in northern Gaza. The report also says the operation happened west of the Yellow Line, a reference that places it in a zone where military activity remains tightly tied to ceasefire arrangements.

The incident sits within a broader pattern of ceasefire-era enforcement actions in Gaza, where both sides have accused the other of violating or testing truce lines. But those wider claims are not the focus here and are not fully documented in the packet. For readers, the key point is narrower: the Israeli military said it detected an immediate threat, struck a group working underground, and kept its forces in place to prevent further activity.

No independent casualty confirmation is provided in the evidence, and no details are given on the timing of the announcement beyond the report’s own description that a Monday announcement confirmed the Saturday strike. That leaves the IDF’s version as the only verifiable source for this article, and the wording here stays aligned with that limit.