CAIRO, July 7 - Israeli strikes on Tuesday resulted in at least two Palestinian fatalities in the Gaza Strip, health officials in the territory reported.
Medics said that an Israeli airstrike in the Mawasi area of Khan Younis, in southern Gaza, killed a man and wounded two children. The Israeli military told Reuters it had targeted a Hamas militant in that operation.
Later the same day, medics reported a separate Israeli airstrike near a tent encampment that shelters displaced families. That strike killed one person and wounded five others. The Israeli military did not immediately provide a comment regarding this second incident.
The strikes are part of a pattern of Israeli operations in Gaza since a U.S.-mediated ceasefire with Hamas took effect last October. Israel has said it conducts strikes to target militants who threaten its forces or who were involved in the October 2023 attack on Israel. Hamas has accused Israel of breaching the ceasefire.
Nikolay Mladenov, U.S. President Donald Trump’s appointed Board of Peace envoy to Gaza, has said both sides have violated the agreement.
Figures released by the two sides indicate that since the ceasefire took effect eight months ago more than 1,070 Palestinians, many of them civilians, and four Israeli soldiers have been killed in Gaza. The number of Hamas fighters killed has not been disclosed by the group.
Israeli troops now control more than 60 percent of Gaza, according to descriptions of their operations, and they patrol what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu calls a buffer zone intended to deter Hamas attacks. Netanyahu has said Israel will not withdraw from the territory.
Israel’s aerial and ground bombardment of Gaza has rendered much of the territory devastated and displaced nearly the entire population of roughly 2 million people. Most of those displaced now live in tents or damaged buildings within a narrow coastal strip of territory governed by Hamas.
Context and continuity
The incidents reported on Tuesday reflect ongoing, intermittent strikes that both sides say contravene the terms of the ceasefire established last October. Both Palestinian health authorities and Israeli military statements were cited for the separate incidents that produced the fatalities and injuries.
Information on the identity and status of militants killed or wounded in these operations is limited, with Hamas not disclosing its fighters casualty figures. The dynamics on the ground remain constrained by the control of areas by Israeli forces and by the large-scale displacement of Gaza’s civilian population.