CAIRO: Israeli strikes killed at least six Palestinians in two separate attacks in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, the territory’s health officials said.
Violating a ceasefire brokered by the US, Israel has continued its airstrikes on Gaza, killing 1,400 Palestinians since the ceasefire took effect, according to the territory’s health officials, while Israel says four of its soldiers have been killed.
Last year’s US-brokered ceasefire calls for eventual reconstruction of the territory. But little progress has been made as negotiators have failed to agree terms for Hamas to disarm and Israel to withdraw its troops from Palestinian territories.
Palestinian authorities say more than 74,000 people have been killed in Israel’s assault on Gaza since October 2023.
Israeli settlers continue to attack Palestinians in occupied West Bank
Gaza’s civil defence agency and a hospital said an Israeli air strike targeting a minibus killed five people on Wednesday in a neighbourhood southwest of the city.
Mahmoud Bassal, a spokesperson for the Palestinian civil defence, said the minibus was carrying civilians between Gaza City and the central and southern parts of the Palestinian territory.
He said it was hit “by two missiles fired by Israeli drones, which led to the destruction of its front and completely burned it”.
Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians face deadly conditions as winter approaches, with continued Israeli attacks and restrictions on aid leaving families without adequate shelter, Gaza’s Government Media Office warned.
Rejecting Israeli claims that sufficient supplies have entered Gaza as misleading, the office said the Israeli forces had permitted only 35pc of the agreed number of aid and reconstruction trucks.
Earlier, Israeli settlers raided the Palestinian village of Awarta, south of Nablus, in the occupied West Bank.
Dozens of Israelis from illegal settlements entered the village under the protection of the Israeli army, attacking Palestinians, local sources told the Palestinian Wafa news agency. Separately, a group of Israelis stormed a historic site near Tulkarem that dates back to the Ottoman era and was built to facilitate the movement of pilgrims and travellers between Palestine and Saudi Arabia at the time, it said.
Published in Dawn, October 1st, 2026
