An Israeli strike killed at least two Palestinians in the central Gaza Strip, health officials said, as residents of an area in the north of the enclave fled their homes after Israeli forces expanded their control in the territory.
Medics said an Israeli strike near a residential building in the Nuseirat refugee camp, in the central Gaza Strip, killed two brothers, Ahmed and Mahmoud Abu Heen. The Israeli military did not immediately comment.
An October 2025 truce brokered by US President Donald Trump has so far failed to halt Israeli attacks in Gaza or to secure the disarmament of Hamas.
The new deaths brought to nearly 1,000 the number of Palestinians killed by Israeli fire since October, according to the Gaza health ministry. Israel says four of its soldiers have been killed in that period.
The violence comes as Nickolay Mladenov, Trump’s Board of Peace envoy for Gaza, arrived in Cairo to pursue talks that mediators from Egypt, Qatar and Türkiye have held with Hamas leaders over implementing the second phase of Trump’s Gaza plan, sources close to the talks said.
Israel and Hamas remain deadlocked over how to proceed with the next stage of Trump’s Gaza plan, which involves Hamas laying down its arms and Israeli withdrawals.
Israeli troops still control more than 60 per cent of Gaza’s territory, where they have ordered residents out and destroyed remaining buildings.
On May 28, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reaffirmed that he had directed Israel’s military to expand its hold and take control of 70pc of the enclave.
Witnesses in southern Gaza have said Israeli forces have in the past few days expanded the ‘Yellow Zone’ – the areas they control – in eastern Khan Younis and northern Rafah, where new markers and concrete blocks have been placed.
On Sunday, Israeli forces sent tanks further into the Al Tuffah neighbourhood of Gaza City in the north, forcing several families to flee. Reuters footage, taken on Monday, showed two yellow blocks used as boundary markers that had been moved closer to houses.
“I swear we don’t know where to go,” said Umm Muhammad Junaynah, a resident of Al Tuffah, as she struggled to hold back tears. “We are getting our furniture out, we don’t know where to go. We don’t know where to go, we have nowhere to go.”
&uuid=(email))