Israeli airstrike said to kill family of four, including two children, in north Gaza

An Israeli airstrike in the northern Gaza Strip on Thursday morning killed a family of four, including two children, health officials said, as the Israeli military was reported to have escalated its strikes in recent days.

The strike hit a home in the Beit Lahia area, Palestinian reports said. A hospital official at Shifa Hospital in Gaza City identified the two child victims as girls aged 12 and 8.

The Israel Defense Forces told The Times of Israel that the strike had killed Muaman Abd al-Rahman Ahmad, “a military operative who took a direct part in fighting against IDF troops.”

According to the IDF, the building near the “Yellow Line” in the Beit Lahia area had been used in the past by terror operatives.

Before carrying out the strike overnight, the IDF said, it had issued a warning “to allow civilians to evacuate the structure.”

“Only after the warning was issued was the strike carried out, while additional measures were taken to reduce the risk of harming uninvolved [civilians], including the use of precise munitions and aerial surveillance,” the military said.

Separately, Palestinian media reported that a strike in southern Gaza’s Khan Younis had wounded three people, two of them children.

The military told The Times of Israel that the Khan Younis strike had targeted a “terrorist,” and that further details would be provided later.

Residents of the Gaza Strip and medics say that over the past two days, the IDF has struck at least six homes across the enclave, causing damage to nearby houses and tent shelters and forcing many families to flee.

Some owners of the houses, or their neighbors, got a call from the military ordering them to leave the area shortly before missiles struck the buildings, residents said.

The IDF did not comment directly on the strikes on houses, but said in a joint statement with the Shin Bet that on Wednesday, three Hamas weapons depots were destroyed in Israeli strikes.

The military said that the sites were used by Hamas to store firearms, explosive devices, anti-tank rockets, and other equipment.

The IDF said it will continue “to operate decisively to degrade the capabilities of terror organizations in the Gaza Strip while thwarting any attempt to rebuild capabilities or possess weapons intended to harm our forces.”

Also on Thursday, the military announced that a Hamas terrorist who invaded Israel during the October 7, 2023, onslaught and was involved in the killing of Nahal Brigade commander Col. Jonathan Steinberg was killed in an airstrike in the Gaza Strip this week.

The strike in southern Gaza’s Khan Younis on Monday killed Ismail Ibrahim Darwish Qandil, a member of Hamas’s elite Nukhba Force, according to the IDF.

The IDF said Qandil invaded Israel on October 7 and took part in killing Steinberg near the border community of Kerem Shalom.

Recently, Qandil had been advancing attacks on troops and civilians, as well as attempting to restore Hamas capabilities, “in systematic violation of the ceasefire,” the military says, adding that he was killed “to remove the threat he posed.”

The latest Israeli strikes came as the international community attempts to implement a US-backed plan for ending the Gaza conflict sparked by Hamas’s October 7, 2023, invasion and massacre. The plan calls for Hamas to disarm in exchange for a gradual Israeli withdrawal from the Strip, but progress has remained stalled, and the terror group is unlikely to disarm before the Israeli national election in October.

The war between Israel and Hamas has killed over 73,400 people in Gaza over the past three years, including more than 1,330 since the October 2025 ceasefire, according to the Hamas-run health ministry in the enclave, although the toll does not differentiate between combatants and civilians.

The Israel Defense Forces believes that Hamas’s overall toll is largely accurate, with IDF officials estimating that two to three civilians were killed for every slain terror operative.

While the October 2025 US-backed ceasefire halted major fighting in the shattered territory, it hasn’t ended strikes by the IDF, which the military says are meant to thwart attacks by Gaza terrorists.

Gaza remains bisected into Israeli- and Hamas-controlled areas, and talks to bring about Hamas’s disarmament and the territory’s reconstruction have made only limited progress.

Since the October 2025 truce, some 10,500 people have exited the Gaza Strip, according to Israeli border crossing figures obtained by The Times of Israel.

During the same period, some 6,000 people returned to the Gaza Strip, coming to a negative balance of approximately 4,500 people.

Of those who exited, more than 6,000 left through the Rafah Crossing, while 4,500 exited through the Kerem Shalom Crossing. Those who returned crossed via Rafah.

Those leaving the Gaza Strip fall into two categories: patients and wounded people evacuated by the World Health Organization, and those with ties to a third country — including students who have secured scholarships, Gazans seeking family reunification with relatives living abroad, and others.

According to World Health Organization data, since the October 2025 ceasefire, 3,015 patients and 5,220 companions who accompanied them left the Strip, for a total of 8,235 people.

That put the number of Gazans who left the Strip for non-medical reasons at approximately 2,300.

Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar declared Wednesday that Israel has no plans to expel or deport any Palestinians from the Gaza Strip by force, amid calls by some ministers to have Israel push to encourage Gazans to leave the territory.