At least four Palestinians were killed in Israeli strikes across the Gaza Strip on Sunday, health officials in the territory said, the latest deaths in a renewed wave of bombardment.
Among the dead was a Palestinian killed near a police post in Khan Younis, in the south of the strip, according to medics. The Israeli military said it had struck a militant who posed an immediate threat to its forces operating in the area, as reported by Reuters.
The strikes come amid a marked intensification of Israeli operations in Gaza. According to Reuters, Israel has stepped up its attacks in recent weeks after halting the joint bombing campaign it conducted with the United States against Iran, turning its firepower back towards the Palestinian territory. The Israeli military says Hamas fighters have been working to tighten their grip there.
The renewed assault matters because it threatens the fragile calm that has held, unevenly, since a ceasefire took effect in October last year. That agreement was intended to bring a pause to more than two years of war, but violence has continued to flare. In the days before Sunday’s strikes, Palestinian medical sources said seven people were killed and around 50 injured in Israeli strikes on a residential apartment and a vehicle in Gaza City, an attack reported by the broadcaster CGTN. Israel said that operation had killed a senior commander in Hamas’s armed wing; Hamas did not confirm or deny the claim.
The war began on 7 October 2023, when Hamas launched a large-scale assault on southern Israel that, according to Israeli figures, killed around 1,200 people. The Israeli offensive that followed has devastated much of Gaza. The territory’s health ministry, whose count does not distinguish between civilians and combatants, has reported tens of thousands of Palestinians killed since then, and aid agencies have repeatedly warned of dire humanitarian conditions across the strip.
The frequency of incidents in recent weeks underlines how precarious the situation remains. Each strike, even where the reported death toll is relatively small, adds to the pressure on Gaza’s overstretched hospitals and to the wider uncertainty over whether the ceasefire can hold.
Israel maintains that its operations are directed at Hamas fighters and infrastructure, and says it acts to remove threats to its troops. Palestinian officials and humanitarian organisations say civilians continue to bear much of the cost. Efforts to consolidate the truce and to address the humanitarian crisis in Gaza are continuing, but Sunday’s deaths are a reminder of how fragile any pause in the fighting has proved to be.
