Israeli strikes kill 7 in Gaza despite ceasefire as IDF targets ‘armed cell’

Gaza's civil defence agency reported on Saturday that Israeli airstrikes in the Palestinian territory had killed seven people overnight, with the military saying it had struck an "armed terrorist cell".

Despite an October 10 ceasefire, Gaza remains gripped by daily violence as both the Israeli military and Hamas accuse one another of breaching the truce.

Mahmoud Bassal, spokesman for Gaza's civil defence agency, which operates as a rescue service under Hamas, said an Israeli drone had fired two missiles close to a police post in the Al-Bureij refugee camp.

In addition to the seven dead, he said, several more people were wounded, four of them critically.

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The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in central Gaza said it had received six bodies and seven wounded, "including four in a critical condition because of direct impacts to the face, torso and other parts of the body".

The nearby Al-Awda hospital said it had received one fatality and two wounded.

AFP images from Al‑Aqsa hospital showed Palestinians gathered around the bodies of several men, laid on the ground and wrapped in white shrouds.

Mourners then carried the bodies to Deir el-Balah in a funeral procession.

The Israeli military said it had struck "an armed Hamas terrorist cell", adding that militants had approached what is known as the Yellow Line and "planned to execute a terror attack against IDF troops in the immediate timeframe".

The Yellow Line is the de facto boundary dividing Gaza into two zones: one under Israeli military control and one under Hamas control.

The military did not specify how many people were killed in the incident.

Israel and Hamas regularly accuse each other of violating the ceasefire, which came into effect after two years of war triggered by the Palestinian movement's October 7, 2023 cross-border attack.

At least 749 Palestinians have been killed since the truce began, according to Gaza's health ministry, which is under Hamas authority and whose figures are considered reliable by the United Nations.

The Israeli army has reported five soldiers killed in Gaza since the start of the truce.

Media restrictions and limited access in Gaza have prevented AFP from independently verifying casualty figures or freely covering the fighting.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by Firstpost staff.)