A pre-dawn Israeli airstrike killed three members of a Palestinian family, including a one-year-old child, in central Gaza on Sunday, hospital officials said, as the machinery of war kept grinding through a formal ceasefire that has not stopped the killing. The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir el-Balah said it received the bodies of a couple and their infant after an Israeli strike hit a residential apartment in the Al-Nuseirat camp before dawn. The hospital said around 10 people were wounded in the strike.
Who Pays for the Truce
The dead were identified by media outlets affiliated with the Hamas terror group in Gaza as Ibrahim Abu Mallouh, 38, his wife Alaa Majdi, 38, and their son Osama. Their apartment was hit while most people were still asleep, another reminder that ordinary families are the ones left exposed when armed powers trade accusations and keep the violence moving.
Gaza remains gripped with daily violence despite a formal ceasefire in place since October, with both the Israel Defense Forces and Hamas accusing one another of violating the truce. The ceasefire, on paper, has not meant safety for people living under it. It has meant more claims, more strikes, and more bodies carried into hospitals.
What the Military Says It Is Doing
The military said on Sunday that it struck and destroyed several Hamas weapons storage facilities in central Gaza over recent days, but it did not comment about the three deaths. According to the military, three weapons warehouses hit Saturday contained anti-tank missiles, firearms, RPGs, vests and other combat equipment. A separate strike on Wednesday destroyed another Hamas weapons depot containing explosive devices, RPG launchers, hand grenades and ammunition magazines, the IDF said.
The military added that secondary explosions were identified following the strikes, indicating the presence of weapons inside the depots. The IDF says it carries out strikes to thwart imminent attacks or in situations where there is a threat to troops. That is the language of the apparatus: security for soldiers, destruction for everyone else nearby.
The Count at the Bottom
At least 890 Palestinians have been killed since the ceasefire, according to Gaza’s health ministry, which operates under Hamas authority and does not distinguish between civilians and combatants. Four IDF soldiers have been killed in attacks by Gazans over the same period. A fifth soldier was killed in a friendly fire incident.
The numbers sit beside each other like a ledger of unequal power. One side has an army, airstrikes, and the ability to define its operations as defensive. The other side’s dead are counted by a health ministry operating under Hamas authority, while the people in the middle keep absorbing the blast radius.
Israel launched the war in Gaza following the October 7, 2023 Hamas massacre that killed some 1,200 people and saw another 251 taken hostage. That attack set the war in motion, and the war has continued to be managed by armed institutions that speak in the language of retaliation, threat, and control while families in Gaza keep paying the price.
The hospital in Deir el-Balah received the bodies. Around 10 more people were wounded. The ceasefire remained in place. The killing did not stop.