Israeli strikes kill five in Gaza as year-old ceasefire stays stalled

Israeli strikes killed at least four Palestinians across the Gaza Strip on Monday, and a fifth died of wounds from an earlier attack, according to Palestinian medical sources and the official Palestinian news agency WAFA, as reported by Al Jazeera and Reuters. The deaths add to a steady toll under a ceasefire that has now held, in name, for just over a year.

The Israeli military said it had "targeted Palestinian fighters in three strikes", Al Jazeera reported, without giving further details.

Where the strikes hit

According to Reuters, citing Gaza health officials and medics, three people were killed and six wounded in two separate air strikes in Khan Younis in the south, and one person was killed in al-Musaddar in central Gaza. Later on Monday, a strike on a vehicle in the Tal al-Hawa neighbourhood of Gaza City killed one more person and wounded others; WAFA said five people were wounded there.

Al Jazeera's count differs slightly: it reported at least two killed in Khan Younis, one in a drone attack on al-Musaddar and one in Tal al-Hawa, with a fifth person dying of injuries from a strike on Sunday. Separately, three people were wounded when a minibus belonging to a community kitchen was hit in Zeitoun, in Gaza City. None of the figures could be independently verified.

A ceasefire under strain

The US-brokered ceasefire took effect in October 2025. Gaza's health ministry, cited by Al Jazeera, says at least 1,593 Palestinians have been killed and 5,748 wounded since then, and at least 74,609 killed since the war began in October 2023. These figures are issued by the Hamas-run ministry and cannot be independently confirmed; Israel disputes them.

Israel says Hamas has been rearming and launching attacks in breach of the truce, and has stepped up its strikes in recent weeks, Reuters reported. Hamas denies trying to carry out attacks or rebuild its arsenal, and accuses Israel of undermining the agreement.

The deal's next stages have stalled. Negotiators have not agreed terms for Hamas to disarm or for Israel to withdraw its troops, who control about two-thirds of the territory, according to Reuters.

Nickolay Mladenov, high representative of the Board of Peace, the body set up under the US plan to oversee Gaza's transition, arrived in Israel on Monday to seek permission to bring in tents and to push reconstruction forward, Al Jazeera reported. The UN migration agency said in early October that nearly two million people in Gaza needed help with shelter.

Regional reaction and what comes next

Jordan's King Abdullah II, opening his country's parliament on Monday, said: "There can be no security or stability in our region without upholding the Palestinian people's right to their homeland," Reuters reported.

Israel's own politics may shape what happens next. The country held a legislative election days ago in which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's party won the most votes but fell short of a majority, Reuters noted.

For India, which has long backed a two-state solution, Gaza is now one of several fronts in a wider West Asian crisis that also includes the US-Iran conflict and attacks on shipping around the Strait of Hormuz. Whether Mladenov secures Israeli approval for shelter supplies before winter, and whether talks on disarmament and withdrawal restart, are the next things to watch.