Israeli attacks kill 7 including 4 children in Gaza despite truce: Civil defence
- Last updated: January 8, 2026 | 21:06 ..
Gaza's civil defence agency said Israeli attacks in the Palestinian territory on Thursday killed seven people, including four children, despite a ceasefire that has largely halted the fighting.
Four people including three children were killed when a drone struck a tent sheltering displaced people in southern Gaza, agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP.
In the north of the Gaza Strip, an 11-year-old girl was killed near the Jabalia refugee camp and a strike on a school killed one person, while a drone near Khan Yunis in the south killed a man, the agency added.
When asked by AFP, the Israeli military said it was checking the reports.
A relative of an 11-year-old girl killed in Gaza said that Israeli gunfire was responsible for her death on Thursday.
The family had returned to a designated safe zone following the Oct.10 ceasefire between Israel and the Hamas group. More than 400 deaths have been reported since then in the Palestinian territory.
After shells and shrapnel hit her home in northern Gaza's Jabaliya area, Hamsa Housou was taken to Shifa Hospital, where she was pronounced dead, her uncle said.
Outside the hospital mortuary, the uncle, Khamis Housou, told The Associated Press that the family had returned home on Oct.11, a day after the ceasefire went into effect.
Housou, who said his niece had dreams of becoming a doctor, recounted how early on Thursday he heard screams as Israeli troops combed the area where shells and shrapnel hit. He ran from his apartment toward the home where Hamsa lived and found her lying on the floor.
He carried the girl to the nearest clinic, only to find the ambulance there had a flat tire. They waited about 15 minutes, he said, before taking her to a hospital, where she was pronounced dead.
"They say that there is a ceasefire and that the war on Gaza has stopped. Is this only through the media, while every day there are explosions and fire belts?" he asked. "Shooting does not stop. Where is the ceasefire?"
Khamis Housou said that Falluja, the neighborhood in Jabaliya where the family lives, has been subjected to daily shooting by Israeli troops despite being on the western side of the yellow ceasefire line.
On Thursday, Egyptian and European Union leaders meeting in Cairo urged the deployment of an international stabilisation force in the Gaza Strip to oversee the October ceasefire.
"The situation is extremely severe. Still, Hamas refuses to disarm. It blocks progress to the next state of the peace plan at the same time Israel is also restricting the international NGOs that are putting humanitarian aid access at serious risk," EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said.
"There's no justification for the humanitarian situation in Gaza to have deteriorated to the current level," she said.
Agencies