Israeli Strike on Islamic University in Gaza City Kills Three, Eight Dead Across Gaza

An Israeli strike on the Islamic University in Gaza City killed three people on Sunday, October 25, 2026, staff and a local hospital said, in the second attack on the campus within a few hours. Attacks elsewhere in Gaza on the same day brought the total killed to at least eight, Al Jazeera reported.

Al Shifa Hospital reported receiving three bodies and treating eight people wounded in the strike, AFP reported. Two sources at the university said the dead were employees and the injured were students. Al Jazeera reported that the three men killed were security guards, and that its correspondent Hani Mahmoud and his team had been filming on the campus and had greeted the guards shortly before the strike killed them.

Two attacks on the campus in a few hours

The university said its campus and surroundings were targeted twice on Sunday, AFP reported. It condemned the attacks and mourned those killed.

In the earlier attack, a drone strike wounded seven female students with flying shrapnel, Al Jazeera reported. One of the students was seriously injured and was transferred to a nearby field hospital, Mahmoud said. Mahmoud reported that most buildings at the university were already destroyed before Sunday, with only a couple partially standing.

The Israeli army said it had been targeting a terrorist from the military wing of Hamas, AFP reported. In its statement, the army said that after uninvolved individuals were identified in the area, the munition was diverted in order to mitigate harm to them. The army also said the strike at the Islamic University was under review. It did not say whether the intended target was among those killed.

Five others killed across Gaza on Sunday

Gaza civil defence reported five other people killed elsewhere in the territory on Sunday, AFP reported.

In southern Gaza, the Nasser Medical Complex reported that two people were killed by Israeli shelling in al-Mawasi in Khan Younis, Al Jazeera reported. Several other people were wounded there, including a child.

One person was killed in a drone strike east of Deir el-Balah in central Gaza, and another person was killed in an attack on al-Rashid Street, near Hamad Hospital in northern Gaza, Al Jazeera reported, citing the Palestinian Wafa news agency. Later on Sunday, another man was killed and several others were injured in an attack on the Sheikh Nasser neighbourhood, east of Khan Younis, Al Jazeera reported.

Education ministry condemns the strike

Gaza's education ministry condemned the strike, AFP reported. The ministry said the global silence regarding attacks on students and universities serves as encouragement for the continuation of these crimes.

The ministry said the strike came at a time when the higher education sector is facing total annihilation, with 95 percent of the buildings belonging to academic institutions having been damaged as a result of the war. It said that over the past six days, 10 students and educators had been killed.

Al Jazeera reported figures from the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza showing at least 1,551 people killed since the ceasefire began in October 2025, and a total death toll of 74,544 since October 2023, with at least 175,692 people wounded.