Israeli Strikes Kill Nine in Gaza, Including Children
Israeli strikes and gunfire killed at least nine people across the Gaza Strip on Saturday, with local health officials saying the dead included a child.
Health officials said an Israeli air strike killed four Palestinians in an apartment building in Gaza City, including two women and a child. The strike on the building in the Sabra neighbourhood destroyed the apartment and wounded several others. The Israeli military said it struck a militant, without providing further details.
In another incident, Israeli troops shot and killed a woman in the northern town of Beit Lahiya. An Israeli air strike also killed at least one person and wounded eight others in Khan Younis, in the south of the territory. Later, an Israeli air strike killed three people, including a local photographer, in the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza, medics said. The Israeli military did not immediately comment on those incidents.
An October ceasefire halted major fighting between Hamas and Israel but has not ended Israeli strikes. Gaza’s health ministry says more than 1,010 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire since the truce. Militants killed four Israeli soldiers in Gaza over the same period. Israel says its strikes aim to thwart imminent attacks by Hamas and other militants. Hamas rarely discloses information about its fighters’ deaths.
Israel and Hamas remain deadlocked over how to proceed with the next stage of US President Donald Trump’s Gaza plan, which involves Hamas laying down its arms and an Israeli troop withdrawal. Talks conducted by mediators Egypt, Qatar, Turkey, and Trump’s Peace Council envoy for Gaza, Nickolay Mladenov, on implementing the second phase of the Trump Gaza plan have yet to reach a deal, according to a source close to the discussions. On Wednesday, sources told Reuters that Mladenov handed Hamas and the factions a revised version of the plan’s roadmap, addressing some of the factions’ concerns while maintaining the ‘core red lines’ of the Trump plan. The sources did not elaborate further. A Hamas official confirmed the document was being studied.
Israel says Hamas must relinquish power in Gaza, disarm, and play no role in the territory’s future governance. Hamas links full disarmament to the launch of a political path towards establishing a Palestinian state. Hamas-led fighters killed 1,200 people during their cross-border attack on Israel on 7 October 2023, according to Israeli tallies. Gaza’s health ministry says more than 73,000 Palestinians have been killed in the territory since then.