Israeli airstrike kills 4 Palestinians in Gaza, medics say

An Israeli airstrike 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’s disarmament is ⁠a ⁠sticking point in talks ​to implement Trump’s plan for the Palestinian enclave and cement the ceasefire.

Hamas’s Oct. 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.