Israeli strike kills Gaza couple and infant in refugee camp

A strike on an apartment in Nuseirat refugee camp killed a Palestinian couple and their six-month-old son as they slept, underscoring how little safety remains for civilians trapped in Gaza’s crowded shelters and damaged homes.

Medics identified the dead as Mohammad Abu Mallouh, his wife Alaa Zaqlan and their infant son, Osama Abu Mallouh. Relatives later gathered at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah to bid farewell to the white-shrouded bodies, after a family member said the attack struck while they were asleep and left six young girls behind.

Later the same day, Israeli gunfire killed another Palestinian man in northern Gaza near a UN-run medical clinic in Jabalia refugee camp. The Israeli military did not immediately comment on either incident.

The killings came even as an October ceasefire brokered by President Donald Trump remained in place on paper. That truce, presented as the first phase of Trump’s 20-point peace plan after indirect negotiations in Egypt, has not stopped Israeli attacks across the enclave, and indirect talks over Hamas disarmament remain deadlocked. The ceasefire has also left Israel controlling more than half of Gaza, while Hamas holds a smaller strip along the coast, and Israeli forces have expanded the area under their control during the truce.

The numbers now frame a war that has never fully paused. Gaza health officials say about 880 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli strikes since the ceasefire began, while four Israeli soldiers have been killed by militants over the same period. Those figures do not separate combatants from civilians, and Hamas does not disclose casualty counts for its fighters. Israel says its post-ceasefire strikes are meant to prevent attacks or stop people from approaching the armistice line.

The human cost is magnified by conditions on the ground. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in mid-May that many displaced families were still crammed into tents or badly damaged buildings because safer alternatives do not exist, while access to clean water and waste services remains severely limited. The United Nations said in early May that just over 10 percent of the money needed for critical humanitarian work in 2026 had been secured. In that setting, a strike on a single apartment is not an isolated tragedy but part of a wider pattern of civilian exposure that continues to drive calls for a durable ceasefire and sharper scrutiny of Israel’s conduct in Gaza.