An overnight strike in Remal kills five, including a mother and daughter from the church

An Israeli airstrike on an apartment building in Gaza City early on Saturday, 3 October 2026, killed at least five people, four of them women, health and civil defence officials said. Among the dead were a Christian mother and daughter, Maisa Abu Dawoud and Mary. Their funeral was held the same day at the Church of Saint Porphyrius. The Israeli military said the overnight strike was an attempt to kill Ali al-Amoudi, whom it described as a Hamas political office leader in Gaza.

The building was al-Asala, in the Remal neighbourhood of western Gaza City. Al Jazeera, citing Gaza Civil Defence and staff at al-Shifa Hospital, said the strike hit while residents were asleep and came without a prior warning. Witness Ahmed al-Dahdouh told Reuters the family woke to continuous strikes and heavy explosions, and that children ran and screamed. The strike destroyed the apartment and started a fire.

Names differ slightly by outlet, which is common when a family is recorded under both a given name and a married name. Reuters used Maisa Abu Dawoud and her daughter Mary. Wafa, citing Ramzi Khoury of the Higher Presidential Committee for Church Affairs, used Maysa Khader Ibrahim Abu Daoud (Ayyad) and Mary Hafez Michel al-Najjar (Abu Daoud). The Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem mourned Maisa Abu Dawoud and Mary. Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem, said he felt deep sorrow at what he called their tragic killing. Fouad al-Najjar, speaking at the church, said he had lost his mother and his grandmother that day.

Friends, including Muslims, and relatives gathered at Saint Porphyrius. Christians are about 1 percent of Gaza's population of more than 2 million. A funeral in that church is a small community burying two of its own in a war that has mostly killed other people. The patriarchate's statement does not change the military account. It fixes the civilian names the military statement did not include.

The military's account and the hospital's account answer different questions. The military says who it was trying to kill. Health officials say who died. Reuters did not report al-Amoudi among the five dead. If he was not in the apartment, the strike missed the stated target and killed five other people. If he was there, the five include him or do not, and the public record has not said which. That gap is the fact a reader can check later against a named casualty list.

Saturday's toll was not limited to Remal. Hospital sources told Al Jazeera that eight Palestinians died across Gaza that day, including one in Beit Lahiya in the north and two who died of wounds from earlier strikes. Since the ceasefire announced last October, Israeli attacks have killed about 1,400 Palestinians in Gaza, a figure carried in the same news cycle. The ceasefire's political terms, Hamas disarmament and an Israeli withdrawal, have not been carried out. Strikes of this kind are what that unfinished deal looks like on a Saturday morning.

Saint Porphyrius has been hit before in this war. Saturday's dead were not killed inside it. They were carried to it. The distinction matters for anyone counting damage to the building against damage to the parish. The parish lost a mother and a daughter. The building in Remal lost an apartment and caught fire. The military says the apartment was chosen because of al-Amoudi.

What is still missing is a confirmation of whether al-Amoudi was killed, wounded, or absent. Until that is stated by a source that names him among the dead or among the living, the strike is on the record as an attempt with five deaths, four of them women, and a funeral at the oldest church in the city.