Israeli military confirms killing of top Hamas commander Raad Saad in Gaza City drone strike

A senior Hamas commander has been killed in an Israeli drone strike in Gaza City on Saturday, the Israeli military has confirmed.

Raad Saad was killed alongside three others when his car was targeted near al-Nabulsi square in western Gaza City, according to Israeli media reports.

Gaza's health ministry said that four people were killed in the attack, with at least 25 others wounded.

Al Jazeera Arabic is reporting that at least five people were killed in the attack.

The Israeli military confirmed in a statement that Saad had been killed in an attack on Hamas' production headquarters in Gaza, adding that the strike was coordinated with the Israeli intelligence agency, Shin Bet.

It claimed that in recent weeks, Hamas was trying to “restore its capabilities and strengthen itself", describing Saad as "one of the last senior veterans remaining in the Gaza Strip", who "held a series of senior positions and was close to Marwan Issa, deputy head of the military wing" of Hamas.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said that he and Defence Minister Israel Katz had ordered the attack in response to an explosion which injured Israeli soldiers in Gaza. 

An Israeli defence official described Saad as the head of Hamas' weapons manufacturing force, while Hamas sources have said he is second only to the group's latest military chief, Izz al-Din al-Haddad, according to Reuters.

The same sources said that Saad previously ran the group's Gaza City battalion, its largest and best-resourced.

Hamas issued a statement condemning the attack, saying it represented "a blatant violation" of the fragile Gaza ceasefire agreement which came into effect in October.

“This crime reaffirms that the [Israeli] occupation is deliberately seeking to undermine and sabotage the ceasefire agreement through its escalating and continuous violations,” the group said in a post on Telegram.

It did not confirm whether a member of the group had been targeted in the attack.

US news site Axios reported that Israel had not warned the US in advance of the strike.