Gaza/Cairo/Jerusalem: Israeli tank fire and airstrikes killed 23 Palestinians, including seven children, in Gaza on Wednesday, health officials said, the latest violence to undermine a ceasefire in the enclave.
Israeli soldiers and tanks stand in Gaza, as seen from the Israeli side of the Israel-Gaza border, in Israel, February 4, 2026. REUTERS/Amir Cohen (REUTERS)Among the dead was a doctor who rushed to help victims of the strike in the southern city of Khan Yunis and was then killed in a second attack in the same location, health officials said.
Other attacks hit Gaza City in the north, where health officials said a 5-month-old boy was killed. The attacks came three days after Israel reopened Gaza’s main border crossing with Egypt, a major step forward in a US-backed ceasefire.
“While we were sleeping in our house, the tanks hit our house and the shells hit our house, our children were martyred – my son was martyred, my brother’s son and daughter were martyred… We have nothing to do, we are peaceful people,” Abu Mohammad Habuch said at a funeral for his family.
Tents in Mawasi, a coastal region near Khan Younis, crowded with Gazans displaced by the conflict, have been torn apart by the strike. Almost all of Gaza’s population of more than 2 million have been forced to flee their homes.
The Israeli military said it launched the attack in response to militants firing on Israeli troops operating near its cease-fire line with Hamas. It said an Israeli soldier was seriously wounded in the firing by the militants, which it described as a violation of the ceasefire agreement.
A statement later said one of the Israeli strikes targeted a senior Hamas commander.
A commander of the militant group Islamic Jihad and his 11-year-old daughter were among those killed in Wednesday’s attack, relatives said.
Hamas said Israel’s move undermined efforts to stabilize the ceasefire. In a statement, the group called for “immediate international pressure to stop violations”.
Rafah reopenedPalestinian patients preparing to travel to Egypt via the newly opened Rafah crossing were told that Israel had suspended patient transit through the border. Since then, Palestinian health authorities have reported that the group of patients was on its way to the border.
COGAT, the Israeli agency that controls access to Gaza, said the Rafah crossing remained open, but it had not received the necessary details from the World Health Organization to facilitate the crossing. The WHO did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
An Egyptian security source told Reuters that Israel cited security issues in the Rafah area as the reason for the temporary closure, but that they had been resolved and work at the border had resumed.
Reopening the crossing was a requirement under the October ceasefire that marked the first step in US President Donald Trump’s plan to end fighting between Israel and Palestinian Hamas militants.
Sixteen patients from Gaza and their 40 escorts crossed into Egypt on Tuesday, Gazan doctors told Reuters. A Hamas police source told Reuters that at least 40 people crossed into Gaza from Egypt late on Tuesday.
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On Saturday, before Rafah reopened, Israeli strikes killed more than 30 Palestinians in Gaza. The army said it carried out the attack after gunmen emerged from a tunnel in Israeli-controlled Gaza.
The second phase of the ceasefireIn January, Trump announced the start of a second phase of the ceasefire in which the sides will discuss the future governance and reconstruction of the shattered enclave.
Important issues such as the withdrawal of Israeli forces from more than 50% of Gaza currently occupied by them and the disarmament of Hamas remain unresolved, while the fragile ceasefire is marked by almost daily violence.
Since the start of the cease-fire, Israeli fire has killed about 560 people, most of them civilians, according to Gaza health officials. Palestinian militants killed four Israeli soldiers at the same time, Israeli authorities said.
Israel’s two-year offensive on the Gaza Strip has killed more than 71,000 Palestinians, displaced much of its population and destroyed much of the Strip, according to Gazan health authorities.
The October 7, 2023, Hamas attack that triggered the war killed about 1,200 people in Israel, according to Israeli figures.
