CAIRO: An Israeli aerial firing killed four Palestinians in the northern Gaza Strip on Sunday, local health authorities said, in the latest violence to overshadow a fragile ceasefire 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 neighbourhood in Gaza City, killing four people and wounding others.
The Israeli military said forces in the northern Gaza Strip had struck and killed members of a Palestinian militant cell who were operating near the troops, posing an immediate threat to them.
Palestinian militant group Hamas and Israel have traded blame for violations of the ceasefire agreed last October, which halted two years of full-blown war.
The Gaza health ministry says Israeli fire has killed at least 700 people since the ceasefire began. Israel says four soldiers have been killed by militants 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 on Thursday.
Hamas’ disarmament is a sticking point in talks to implement Trump’s plan for the Palestinian enclave and cement the ceasefire.
Hamas’ October 7, 2023, attacks on Israel killed 1,200 people, according to Israeli tallies.
Israel’s ensuing two-year campaign killed more than 72,000 Palestinians, most of them civilians, according to Gazan health authorities, and has spread famine, demolished most buildings, and displaced most of the territory’s population, in many cases numerous times.
