Eight months after a ceasefire was brokered in Gaza, the killing has not stopped — only slowed enough to be called something other than war. An Israeli air strike on Deir al Balah on Monday morning killed three Palestinians, among them a child, the latest in a sequence of twelve deaths since Saturday alone. The ceasefire, like so many agreements forged between exhausted parties, has become a document both sides sign and neither fully honors, leaving ordinary people to absorb the cost of its ambiguity.
Israeli strike kills three Palestinians, including child, amid ceasefire violations
Three Palestinians killed including a child in the air strike; twelve Palestinians killed by Israeli military since Saturday; one Palestinian teen shot dead in West Bank raid.
A ceasefire eight months old, still counting the dead
Mark
So there's a ceasefire that's been in place for eight months, but people are still dying. How does that work?
Mimi
The ceasefire was supposed to stop major hostilities, but both sides say the other is breaking it. Israel says it's targeting specific militants or people involved in the 2023 attack. Hamas says Israel is violating the agreement. The US envoy says both sides have violated it.
Luke
Right, but we should be clear: the source doesn't tell us whether these three people killed on Monday were militants or civilians. The health ministry says they were killed, but we don't have independent confirmation of who they were or what they were doing.
Mimi
That's fair. What we do know is that twelve Palestinians have been killed since Saturday, and the pattern has been consistent for eight months—operations continuing despite the ceasefire.
Mark
And the numbers—1,045 Palestinians versus four Israeli soldiers. That's a huge gap.
Luke
It is, but we need to be careful about what that gap means. It reflects the military imbalance and Gaza's population density, but it doesn't tell us whether each individual operation was justified or proportional. Those are separate questions.
Mimi
The envoy's statement is important though—he's saying both sides have violated it, which suggests the ceasefire framework itself is under strain.
Mark
So what happens next? Does this collapse?
Luke
The source doesn't say. We know the pattern continues, we know both sides blame each other, but whether this is sustainable or heading toward something worse—that's still open.
Mimi
That's the real question hanging over this.
O Pulso
- A child was among three Palestinians killed in an Israeli air strike on central Gaza's Deir al Balah at 9:30am Monday, the Israeli military confirming the strike but offering no explanation of its target.
- Twelve Palestinians, including four children, have been killed by Israeli military action since Saturday — a pace of death that strains the very meaning of the word ceasefire.
- The violence has crossed into the West Bank, where a Palestinian teenager was shot dead by Israeli soldiers during a raid in Al-Bireh, with the military offering no immediate account of the circumstances.
- Israel justifies its continued operations as targeting militants who threaten its soldiers still occupying roughly 60 percent of Gaza, or individuals linked to the October 7, 2023 attack — a rationale Hamas calls systematic violation.
- The US envoy to Gaza has publicly stated that both sides have breached the October ceasefire agreement, shifting the central question from whether violations have occurred to whether the arrangement can survive them at all.
- Since the ceasefire took effect, 1,045 Palestinians and four Israeli soldiers have been killed — a disparity that reflects the asymmetry of firepower and the density of civilian life in Gaza, without resolving who bears responsibility for each death.
Eight months after a ceasefire was brokered in Gaza, the killing has not stopped — only slowed enough to be called something other than war. An Israeli air strike on Deir al Balah on Monday morning killed three Palestinians, among them a child, the latest in a sequence of twelve deaths since Saturday alone. The ceasefire, like so many agreements forged between exhausted parties, has become a document both sides sign and neither fully honors, leaving ordinary people to absorb the cost of its ambiguity.
On Monday morning, an Israeli air strike hit Deir al Balah in central Gaza, killing at least three Palestinians including a child. The Israeli military confirmed the strike but declined to explain its target. The attack is not an isolated event: twelve Palestinians, among them four children, have been killed by Israeli military action since Saturday, according to Gaza's health ministry.
The violence is unfolding against the backdrop of a ceasefire now eight months old, brokered by the United States in October. Israel maintains a military presence across roughly 60 percent of Gaza's territory and has continued operations it says are directed at militants threatening its soldiers or individuals involved in the October 7, 2023 attack. On Sunday, it announced the killing of an Islamic Jihad member it identified as having participated in that assault.
Beyond Gaza, a Palestinian teenager was shot and killed by Israeli soldiers during a raid in Al-Bireh in the occupied West Bank. Palestinian health authorities confirmed the death; the Israeli military said it was examining the report.
Hamas has formally accused Israel of systematically violating the ceasefire. The US envoy appointed by President Trump has stated publicly that both parties have breached its terms. What is no longer in dispute is that the violations have occurred — only whether they are severe enough to unravel the agreement entirely.
The eight months since the ceasefire took effect have produced 1,045 Palestinian deaths and four Israeli soldier deaths, according to available figures. Hamas does not publish its own casualty counts, making independent verification difficult. The numbers do not settle questions of culpability or combatant status, but they do mark the distance between what a ceasefire is supposed to mean and what this one has delivered.
An Israeli air strike struck Deir al Balah, a city in central Gaza, on Monday morning around 9:30am local time, killing at least three Palestinians, including a child, according to the territory's health ministry. The Israeli military confirmed the strike had taken place but offered no additional comment on the target or circumstances. The incident marks the latest in a sustained pattern of military operations that has continued despite an official ceasefire agreement now eight months old.
The strike occurred in an area controlled by Hamas, in a region where Israel maintains military presence across roughly 60 percent of Gaza's territory. The health ministry's count of casualties from this single operation adds to a broader toll: twelve Palestinians, including four children, have been killed by Israeli military action since Saturday alone, the ministry reported. The pattern reflects a fundamental fracture in the ceasefire framework that was supposed to have halted major hostilities.
The violence extends beyond Gaza's borders. A Palestinian teenager was shot and killed by Israeli soldiers during a military raid in Al-Bireh, a town in the occupied West Bank, according to Palestinian health authorities. The Israeli military said it was examining the report but provided no immediate statement on the circumstances.
Israel's military has justified its continued operations by citing two categories of threat: militants it says are actively threatening Israeli soldiers still present in Gaza, and individuals it identifies as participants in the October 7, 2023 attack that initiated the most recent conflict. On Sunday, the military announced it had killed a member of Islamic Jihad, another armed group operating in Gaza, whom it said had been involved in abducting Israeli civilians during that 2023 assault.
The ceasefire itself, brokered by the United States and reached in October, has become a contested document. Hamas has formally accused Israel of systematic violations. Nikolay Mladenov, the US envoy to Gaza appointed by President Donald Trump, has stated publicly that both sides have breached the agreement's terms. Neither side disputes that military operations have continued; they dispute only who bears responsibility for breaking the accord.
The human arithmetic of the past eight months tells the story in numbers. Since the ceasefire took effect, 1,045 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, many of them civilians according to health ministry figures. Four Israeli soldiers have died. Hamas does not release its own casualty counts, leaving independent verification difficult. The disparity in numbers reflects the asymmetry in firepower and the density of civilian population in Gaza, though it does not settle the question of who initiated each specific incident or whether each operation targeted combatants or civilians.
What remains unresolved is whether the ceasefire framework can hold, or whether Monday's strike and the twelve deaths since Saturday represent a return to the pattern of escalation that characterized the months before October. The envoy's statement that both parties have violated the agreement suggests the dispute is no longer whether violations have occurred, but whether they are sufficient to collapse the entire arrangement.
Citações Notáveis
Israel has repeatedly carried out strikes on Gaza since the ceasefire, saying it was targeting militants threatening its soldiers or those involved in the October 7, 2023 attack— Israeli military position
Both parties have violated the ceasefire agreement— Nikolay Mladenov, US envoy to Gaza
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War & Conflict