Israeli Strikes Kill Four in Gaza as Ceasefire Fails to Hold

Photo: Yousef Al Zanoun/AP via Al Jazeera

Four Palestinians were killed in Israeli attacks across Gaza on Monday, and a fifth man died of wounds from an earlier strike, medical sources said. Two people died in Khan Younis in the south, one in a drone attack in central Gaza, and one in a strike on a car in Gaza City. The deaths came even though a United States brokered ceasefire is still supposed to be in place.

It was another grim day in a war that has not really stopped. Al Jazeera reported that medical sources counted the dead across three separate places, all on the same day. In Khan Younis, two people were killed in a gun attack and an air raid. In the central village of al-Masdar, a drone attack killed a third person.

The fourth death was in Gaza City, in the Tal al-Hawa area. The Wafa news agency named the man killed in a strike on a vehicle there as Hani Hamed Kahil, and said five other people were hurt in the same attack. A fifth man, Youssef Abu Younis, died on Monday of injuries from a strike on a police post in al-Mawasi on Sunday. That Sunday strike had already killed at least five other police officers.

Three more people were wounded on Monday when a minibus belonging to a community kitchen was hit in Zeitoun, also in Gaza City. The Times of Israel, reporting the same Monday deaths, said a woman and two children were among the wounded in one of the Khan Younis strikes. The Israeli military said it had targeted Palestinian fighters in three strikes, but gave no further details about the Monday attacks.

The numbers behind Monday tell a wider story, one that has kept growing since the ceasefire took effect in October 2025:

• At least 1,593 Palestinians killed in Israeli attacks since the ceasefire began, according to the Gaza health ministry
• 5,748 more wounded in the same period
• At least 74,609 Palestinians killed since October 2023, with 175,872 wounded
• Nearly 2 million people in Gaza still need shelter help, the UN migration agency said on 9 October, with half of all tents and makeshift shelters needing replacement

For ordinary families in Gaza, the ceasefire on paper and the reality on the ground feel like two different things. The attacks on Monday came as efforts were under way to get shelter to displaced people before winter. Israeli Army Radio reported that Nickolay Mladenov, the senior official of the Board of Peace set up by the United States to oversee the Gaza plan, arrived in Israel on Monday to seek permission to bring in tents and push for faster rebuilding.

That rebuilding cannot move fast while strikes keep coming. The political picture in Israel is also unsettled, with no bloc winning a majority in the 27 October election, so the government that will decide the next steps on Gaza is still not formed. The wider region is tense too, with strikes reported on Iran's Qeshm Island and Qatar's peace efforts with Iran still in play, which leaves Gaza caught in a much bigger standoff.

What this means in plain terms is simple. A ceasefire that still leaves people dying in Khan Younis, in central Gaza and in Gaza City on a single day is not holding for the families living under it, and winter is now adding cold and rain to hunger and displacement.

Sources

• Al Jazeera: Israeli forces kill four in Gaza as fifth Palestinian dies of wounds
• The Times of Israel: IDF says 6 Hamas operatives killed in recent Gaza strikes

Watch for whether the Board of Peace push for tents and rebuilding gets anywhere this week, and whether Monday's deaths draw any response from the ceasefire mediators.

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