Five Palestinians Martyred in Israeli Airstrikes on Gaza

At least five Palestinians were killed in Israeli airstrikes and shelling across the Gaza Strip on Thursday, Palestinian health officials said, as a US-based research group reported that Israeli attacks had surged to their highest monthly level since the latest ceasefire took effect in October.

Strikes Across the Strip

Medics said an Israeli airstrike killed two people near the Tuffah neighbourhood in the north of the enclave, while a third person was killed in Israeli tank shelling in the Zeitoun suburb east of Gaza City. In western Gaza City, another airstrike struck a tent encampment sheltering displaced people, killing one person and wounding several others, while an attack on a vehicle in Khan Younis, in the south, killed one more, according to medical sources. Around ten others were reported wounded in the day's attacks.

Witnesses also reported that an airstrike hit a residential building in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, causing damage to several nearby homes, following an earlier Israeli military evacuation warning. The Israeli military had no immediate comment on the individual incidents. Eyewitnesses further described Israeli vehicles advancing overnight around the Dawla intersection under heavy artillery fire, pushing westward and expanding the army's area of control, prompting dozens of families to flee their homes.

Attacks at Their Highest Since the Truce

The Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED), a US-based conflict monitor, reported that Israeli air attacks in June reached their highest monthly level since the October ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. The deaths add to a toll of more than 1,100 Palestinians, mostly civilians, killed by Israeli attacks since the truce took effect, according to Gaza's health officials.

"The entire people of Gaza have not lived a single day or a single moment of ceasefire. This ceasefire is an illusion," Jibril Khattab, a relative of one of the victims, told reporters in Gaza. The latest deaths follow at least a dozen people reported killed across the territory over the preceding two days, including police officers and members of a single family in central Gaza.

A Population Confined and Under Strain

Nearly all of Gaza's roughly two million residents are now confined to a narrow coastal strip, most living in makeshift tents or damaged buildings. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has stated that Israel now controls roughly 70 percent of the Gaza Strip, with Palestinians barred from approaching an Israeli-imposed security buffer known as the "yellow line." Humanitarian conditions in the territory remain dire, with medical sources also reporting the spread of disease amid the continued displacement and destruction.

The Broader Toll

The overall death toll from the war, which began in October 2023, has surpassed 73,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza's Ministry of Health, whose figures United Nations agencies and independent researchers have described as generally reliable. According to Israeli tallies, Hamas-led fighters killed around 1,200 people in the cross-border attack into Israel on October 7, 2023, that triggered the war.

Where Things Stand

With Israeli operations continuing on a near-daily basis despite the formal ceasefire, and the later phases of the truce agreement remaining incomplete, Palestinians in Gaza continue to report fresh casualties amid ongoing strikes, shelling, and ground incursions. This remains a developing situation.