Photo: Jaber Jehad Badwan, via Wikimedia Commons (freely licensed). File photo of Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, February 23, 2025, not a photo of Monday's strikes.
Israeli strikes killed at least four Palestinians and wounded several others in the Gaza Strip on Monday, the territory's health officials said, in the latest deadly test of a year-old ceasefire that has held on paper while violence has continued on the ground.
Medics said two people were killed and six others wounded in two separate airstrikes in Khan Younis, in the south of the enclave, while a third person was killed in an Israeli airstrike in the town of Al-Mussadar. Later on Monday, an Israeli airstrike hit a vehicle in Gaza City's Tel Al-Hawa neighbourhood, killing one person and wounding some others, medics said, taking Monday's death toll to at least four.
The Israeli military said it carried out two strikes in the enclave, targeting Palestinian militants, without giving further information. It did not immediately comment on the later Tel Al-Hawa strike. The identities of those killed in the first three strikes have not been publicly released, and the military has not said what specific targets it struck.
A ceasefire under strain
Israel says Hamas has been rearming and launching attacks in violation of the ceasefire agreed last year, and has stepped up strikes on the group in recent weeks. Hamas has denied trying to carry out attacks or rebuild its arsenal, and accuses Israel of undermining the Gaza peace deal. Last year's US-brokered ceasefire calls for eventual reconstruction of the territory, a phase that has not begun while strikes continue.
Monday's strikes followed a bloody Sunday, when Israeli strikes killed at least eight Palestinians, including five police officers, according to Dawn, in separate attacks in Gaza City and Khan Younis. The two days are separate incidents, but together they show how quickly the daily toll can rise even when neither side has formally declared the ceasefire over.
According to the territory's health officials, at least 1,580 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks in Gaza since the ceasefire, while Israel says four soldiers have been killed. Palestinian authorities say more than 74,000 people have been killed in Israel's assault on Gaza, launched after Hamas-led fighters killed about 1,200 people in southern Israel on October 7, 2023.
What is confirmed, and what is not
The confirmed core of Monday's story is narrow: strikes in Khan Younis, Al-Mussadar and Tel Al-Hawa; at least four dead and several wounded, as reported by medics and health officials; and two strikes acknowledged by the Israeli military as targeting militants. What has not been publicly established is the identity of the people killed, whether they were the militants the military said it targeted, or what prompted each individual strike.
That gap matters because both sides describe the same events in opposite terms. Israel frames its strikes as enforcement against a group it says is violating the truce. Hamas frames them as violations of the truce itself. Independent verification of each strike's target is rarely available in the hours after an attack, and casualty figures come from Gaza health officials, whose counts have been widely cited by international agencies but cannot be independently checked strike by strike.
What happens next
For now, the ceasefire remains formally in place, but its credibility is being tested daily. Aid agencies and mediators will be watching whether Monday's toll is followed by further strikes or by a pause, and whether either side takes a step that formally ends the agreement. For civilians in Khan Younis, Al-Mussadar and Gaza City, the distinction between a strained ceasefire and a resumed war may already feel academic: the strikes, and the funerals, continue either way.
Sources: Reuters, November 2, 2026 (via The Straits Times, Arab News and Channel News Asia); Dawn, November 2, 2026 (Sunday strikes). Casualty figures are as reported by Gaza health officials and medics; the Israeli military's account of targeting militants is as stated by the military.