Israeli strike kills two children in Gaza City despite ceasefire
An overnight strike on a Gaza City apartment killed two children as rescue crews searched the rubble, underscoring how the ceasefire had not stopped the killing.
An Israeli strike hit an apartment in Gaza City around 2 a.m. Saturday, killing at least two children as rescue workers searched through the debris for more bodies. The overnight attack added to a growing toll that has continued despite the ceasefire that was supposed to bring relief to the Gaza Strip.
Palestinian health officials said the death toll was expected to rise as crews dug through the wreckage. The Gaza Health Ministry said the enclave had endured near-daily Israeli attacks since the ceasefire began on Oct. 10, 2025, and put the number of Palestinians killed since then at 1,007, with 3,165 injured and 784 bodies recovered from areas that had previously been inaccessible. The Israeli military did not immediately issue a statement but said it was looking into the incident.
The strike landed in a pattern that UNICEF has described as a brutal contradiction to the language of truce. On June 19, UNICEF said 265 Palestinian children had been killed across Gaza since the ceasefire was announced in October 2025, and that a Palestinian child had been killed on average every day for more than eight months. The agency also said on June 10 that eight children were reported killed and 17 injured across five different locations in Gaza over that weekend.
UNICEF called the ceasefire a “deadly illusion” for children, a phrase that has taken on sharper meaning as strikes continue to tear through homes and neighborhoods. For families in Gaza City, the danger is not confined to front lines or military positions; it reaches into apartment buildings where parents and children sleep, and where one blast can leave survivors clawing through concrete and dust for anyone still alive.
The broader humanitarian toll remains staggering. UNICEF said in February that since Oct. 7, 2023, at least 21,289 children had been reported killed in Gaza and 44,500 injured. It also said no hospital in Gaza was fully functional, with 18 of 36 hospitals operating only partially. Against that backdrop, even a single strike on a residential apartment becomes more than an isolated event. It is another measure of how fragile ceasefire promises have been, and how far Gaza remains from anything that resembles normal life.
This article was produced by Prism’s automated news system from verified source data, official records, and press releases, then run through automated quality and moderation checks before publishing. The system is built and supervised by the people who set the standards it runs under. Read our full AI policy.
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