Israel kills 4 Gazans while mediators try to bolster fragile truce
Palestinians inspect a vehicle targeted by an Israeli strike in Maghazi camp for Palestinian refugees in the central Gaza Strip, Palestine, April 4, 2026. (AFP Photo)


At least four people were killed in Israeli airstrikes on the northern Gaza Strip Sunday, ​local health officials said, in the latest violence to overshadow a fragile cease-fire amid ⁠a new push by ⁠mediators to bolster the agreement.

Medics said the airstrike targeted a group of people in Jaffa ​Street, near the Darraj neighborhood in ​Gaza ⁠City, killing four people and wounding others.

The Israeli military did not immediately comment on the incident.

Palestinian resistance group Hamas and Israel have traded blame for violations of the cease-fire agreed last October, which halted two years of full-blown war.

"An Israeli airstrike before dawn killed four and wounded several," the civil defence agency reported.

Gaza's al-Shifa hospital confirmed the toll, saying an Israeli drone carried out the strike.

"Four martyrs and five wounded arrived at the hospital this morning after an Israeli drone fired two missiles at a group of civilians," the hospital said in a statement.

Earlier Saturday, one Palestinian was killed and three were injured in a separate Israeli drone strike on a vehicle in the central Gaza Strip.

Other parts of the enclave also came under Israeli gunfire and naval shelling. The Israeli army did not immediately comment on those attacks.

Despite a cease-fire being in effect, Israel has continued to launch strikes across Gaza, killing at least 715 people since the truce took hold on Oct. 10, according to the territory's Health Ministry. Israel claims resistance members have killed four soldiers in Gaza over the same period.

A Hamas delegation met Egyptian, Qatari and Turkish mediators in Cairo last week to give its initial response to a disarmament proposal presented to the group last month, two Egyptian sources and a Palestinian official said.

The group has told mediators it ⁠will not discuss giving up arms without guarantees that Israel will fully quit Gaza as laid out in a disarmament ​plan from U.S. President Donald Trump's "Board of Peace," three ​sources told Reuters Thursday.

Hamas' disarmament is a sticking point in talks to implement Trump's ⁠plan ‌for ‌the Palestinian enclave and cement the cease-fire.

Hamas' ⁠Oct. 7, 2023, incursion into southern Israel caused around 1,200 deaths, according to Israeli tallies.

Israel's ensuing two-year ​genocidal war on Gaza, in comparison, killed more than ⁠72,000 Palestinians, most of them civilians, ⁠according to Gazan health authorities.

The war has also spread famine, ⁠demolished most ​buildings, and displaced most of the territory's population, in many cases, numerous times.