Israeli strikes kill 6 Gazans as cease-fire violations persist

Israeli strikes and gunfire killed at least six Palestinians across the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, according to the territory’s health officials.

Medical officials said an Israeli airstrike in the Mawasi area of southern Gaza’s Khan Younis killed one man and wounded two children. The Israeli military told Reuters the strike targeted a Hamas member.

A separate airstrike near a tent camp sheltering displaced families in western Gaza City killed one person and wounded five others, medics said. Another strike in Khan Younis left one person dead and three others wounded.

The Israeli military said both attacks targeted Hamas members. The Popular Resistance Committees, an armed Palestinian faction that has long carried out attacks against Israel, said one of the strikes in Khan Younis killed one of its senior leaders, Waheed Abu Salem.

Later Tuesday, one Palestinian was killed and nine others were wounded by Israeli gunfire in an area of Rafah in southern Gaza, medics and witnesses said.

Meanwhile, an Israeli airstrike struck a vehicle in Gaza City’s Tel al-Hawa neighborhood, killing two people, medics said, bringing Tuesday’s death toll across the Gaza Strip to at least six. The Israeli military did not immediately comment on the two latest incidents.

Cease-fire violations

Israel has repeatedly carried out strikes in Gaza since a U.S.-mediated cease-fire with Hamas was reached last October, saying it is targeting Hamas members who threaten its forces or who took part in the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel.

Hamas has accused Israel of violating the cease-fire. Nikolay Mladenov, U.S. President Donald Trump’s appointed Board of Peace envoy to Gaza, has said both sides have violated the agreement.

Since the cease-fire took effect eight months ago, more than 1,070 Palestinians, many of them civilians, and four Israeli soldiers have been killed in Gaza, according to figures released by the two sides. Hamas does not disclose the number of its members killed.

Israeli troops control more than 60% of Gaza, patrolling what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu describes as a buffer zone to deter Hamas attacks. Netanyahu says Israel will not withdraw from the territory.

Israel’s devastating air and ground campaign in Gaza has displaced nearly the territory’s entire population of about 2 million people, most of whom now live in tents or damaged buildings along a narrow coastal strip governed by Hamas.

Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, incursion into southern Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,200 people. Gaza’s Health Ministry says more than 73,000 Palestinians have been killed in the territory since then.

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