Palestinian children mourned following the Israeli killing of three people in Gaza [Getty]
An Israeli airstrike killed at least three Palestinians in the Gaza Strip on Monday, health officials said, as mediators met leaders from Hamas in an effort to shore up a US-brokered ceasefire deal which has been violated on a near-daily basis by Israel.
Medics said the strike had hit a group of men outside a school in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.
At Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Balah, the bodies of those killed lay on the ground in white shrouds outside the morgue as relatives and friends arrived to bid them farewell. Some kissed the victims’ foreheads before holding special prayers.
“This isn’t a truce; it’s a trap for our young men. Every day there are martyrs, every single day. How long can this continue?” said Umm Hussam Abu El-Rous, a female relative of one of the victims.
“Isn’t it unjust that a three-year-old child is afraid of seeing his (dead) father? He says, ‘My father went to bring me something from the shop,'” she added.
The ceasefire that began last October halted two years of genocidal Israeli war but left Israeli troops in control of a depopulated zone demarcated by yellow-painted blocks that comprises well over half of Gaza, while Israeli airstrikes continue.
More than 750 Palestinians have been killed since the deal took effect.
Palestinians say Israeli forces have been moving some of the yellow concrete markers westward, deeper into Gaza.
The violence comes as leaders from Hamas and other Palestinian factions have been meeting since Saturday in Cairo with mediators from Egypt, Turkey, and Qatar to discuss implementing the second phase of the Gaza deal.
Under a plan put forward by US President Donald Trump’s so-called Board of Peace, Hamas would be required to lay down its arms in stages over eight months after a U.S.-backed committee of Palestinian technocrats takes control in Gaza.
Israel is not required to take any reciprocal confidence-building measures and Hamas is reluctant to give up its weapons amid Israel’s continued occupation of most of Gaza. The ceasefire deal has also been put under strain by the US-Israel war on Iran.
Two officials close to the latest talks said Hamas told mediators that discussions on disarmament could only move forward after Israel fully implements the first phase of Trump’s October deal, which includes a complete ceasefire in Gaza.
Israeli military officials have said they are preparing for a swift return to full-scale war if Hamas does not lay down its weapons.
Israel’s genocidal campaign in Gaza, which began on 7 October 2023, killed more than 72,000 Palestinians, mostly civilians, and left most of the territory in ruins.
