ISRAELI air strikes killed at least four Palestinians in the Gaza Strip yesterday, health officials said, as mediators met leaders from Hamas to shore up a US-brokered ceasefire deal.
Medics said the strike hit a group of men outside a school in Deir Al Balah in the central Gaza Strip, killing three. Separately, another strike killed one person and injured another at a cafe in Gaza City, they added. The Israeli military did not comment on either incident.
At Al Aqsa Hospital in Deir Al Balah, the bodies of those killed lay on the ground in white shrouds outside the morgue as relatives and friends arrived to bid them farewell. Some kissed the victims’ foreheads before holding special prayers.
“This isn’t a truce; it’s a trap for our young men. Every day there are martyrs, every single day. How long can this continue?” said Umm Hussam Abu El Rous, a female relative of one of the victims.
“Isn’t it unjust that a three-year-old child is afraid of seeing his (dead) father? He says, ‘My father went to bring me something from the shop,’” she added.
The ceasefire that began last October halted two years of full-blown war but left Israeli troops in control of a depopulated zone demarcated by yellow-painted blocks that makes up well over half of Gaza, with Hamas in power in a narrow coastal strip and Israeli air strikes continuing.
More than 750 Palestinians have been killed since the deal took effect, while fighters have killed four Israeli soldiers. Israel and Hamas have traded blame for ceasefire violations.
Palestinians say Israeli forces have been moving some of the yellow concrete markers westward. Israel denies this.
The violence comes as leaders from Hamas and other Palestinian factions have been meeting since Saturday in Cairo with mediators from Egypt, TÜrkiye, and Qatar to discuss implementing the second phase of the Gaza deal.
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