A wave of Israeli bombardments across the Gaza Strip has claimed the lives of at least seven Palestinians while obliterating a critical medical supply depot, undermining recent optimism surrounding a United States-backed disarmament framework.
The deadly strikes unfolded just days after Palestinian factions, including Hamas, agreed to a new disarmament deal aimed at bringing the prolonged conflict to an end. Despite a technical ceasefire that has been in place since October 2025, hostilities have persisted, pushing the post-truce death toll past 1,200.
According to local emergency services and hospital officials, the most recent casualties occurred in a series of drone and aerial attacks. In Gaza City, a drone strike in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood killed two individuals, while another targeted the al-Reis area, leaving two more dead on a residential rooftop. An additional airstrike on al-Thalatini Street resulted in one fatality and multiple injuries. Further south, a drone attack in Deir el-Balah claimed one life, and a strike on a displaced persons' encampment in al-Mawasi killed another.
The violence also dealt a devastating blow to central Gaza's fragile healthcare infrastructure. An overnight strike targeted and destroyed critical medicine storage facilities attached to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir el-Balah. The facility serves as one of the last remaining medical lifelines for the densely populated region.
Gaza's Health Ministry reported that two storage units were entirely leveled and two others suffered severe damage, vaporizing essential supplies including intravenous fluids and medications required for dialysis and intensive care. Local correspondents noted that the Israeli military issued an evacuation warning a mere 15 minutes before the blast, which also ignited nearby tents sheltering displaced families.
"When the occupation fights people by destroying medicines and preventing medicine from entering, it turns medicine and illness itself into a tool of war," said Munir al-Bursh, the director-general of the local Health Ministry.
In response, the Israeli military and the Shin Bet security agency stated that they had successfully eliminated five Hamas weapons caches overnight, explicitly claiming that one was located in the vicinity of the Al-Aqsa Hospital.
The humanitarian toll continues to mount exponentially. Gaza’s Civil Defence teams recently concluded a grueling recovery operation in the Sabra neighborhood, retrieving the remains of 112 individuals—including 40 children and 38 women—from a family compound leveled by Israeli forces two weeks prior. Officials estimate that over 150 bodies remain buried under the concrete rubble. Overall, the regional health authority reports that more than 73,000 Palestinians have perished since the war erupted in October 2023.
Political analysts suggest the sustained military campaign signals underlying friction regarding the recently proposed peace roadmap. Mark Pfeifle, a former US deputy national security adviser, noted that the continuous bombardment likely indicates Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's reluctance to embrace the current terms of the US-brokered disarmament and withdrawal agreement.