The Hamas-run Gaza civil defense agency said Israeli attacks in the coastal enclave killed at least 13 people late Thursday, including five children, despite a ceasefire that has largely halted the fighting.
In a joint statement on Friday morning, the Israel Defense Forces and Shin Bet security service confirmed the strikes, saying they were undertaken in response to a “failed launch” of a missile from Gaza City toward Israel.
The security organizations said the strikes “precisely” targeted Hamas terrorists and the group’s infrastructure, including tunnels used for launching rockets, in the north and south of Gaza.
“The launch carried out from the Gaza Strip constitutes a blatant violation of the ceasefire agreement,” the statement said.
“The IDF and the Shin Bet view any breach of the agreement with the utmost severity and will continue to act against any attempt by terrorist organizations in the Gaza Strip to carry out terrorist attacks against IDF forces or Israeli civilians.”
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Earlier on Thursday, the IDF said a projectile was launched “from the area of Gaza City toward the State of Israel” but that it fell within the Gaza Strip and that “shortly after, the IDF precisely struck the launch point.”
Palestinians walk through the ruins of destroyed buildings as the sun sets over Gaza City, January 4, 2026. (AP/Jehad Alshrafi)
Gaza civil defense agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP that four people, including three children, were killed when a drone struck a tent sheltering displaced people in southern Gaza. Another drone strike near Khan Younis killed a man, the Hamas-run agency added.
In the north of the Gaza Strip, an 11-year-old girl was killed near the Jabalia refugee camp and a strike on a school killed one person, according to the agency.
Two more Gazans, including a child, were killed in other attacks, the agency reported.
Later on Thursday evening, four more people were killed in an Israeli air strike that targeted a house in an eastern area of Gaza City, Bassal said, adding that rescue work to search for several people who were missing had begun.
“The death toll has risen to 13 as a result of Israeli strikes on the Gaza Strip since this morning in a clear violation of the ceasefire agreement,” Bassal said.
Since October 10, a fragile US-sponsored truce in Gaza has largely halted the fighting between Israeli forces and Hamas, but both sides have alleged frequent ceasefire violations.
Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem told AFP that the strikes in Gaza on Thursday “confirm the Israeli occupation’s renunciation of its commitment to the ceasefire.”
Israeli forces have killed at least 425 Palestinians in Gaza since the ceasefire took effect in October, according to Gaza’s health ministry. This toll cannot be verified and does not differentiate between civilians and gunmen.
Three IDF soldiers have been killed during the same period.
The flare-up in violence came even as Israel and other countries prepared on for the onset of the Gaza ceasefire’s second phase, which the US is planning to begin next week.
Phase two is meant to establish longer-term governance and security frameworks for the enclave.
On Wednesday, multiple sources told The Times of Israel that US President Donald Trump aims to begin the second phase of the ceasefire, even as the body of one slain Israeli hostage, Ran Gvili, remains held in Gaza. Trump is set to announce the Board of Peace, which will supervise Gaza’s on-the-ground government.
Trump’s move comes as other key pieces of the ceasefire have yet to occur, such as Hamas’s disarmament, which the terror group has rejected, and the opening of the Rafah Border Crossing between Gaza and Egypt.
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