Israeli strikes killed at least eight Palestinians, including five police officers, in the Gaza Strip in two separate attacks on Sunday, according to medics and the Hamas-run interior ministry, Reuters reported from Cairo. Medics said three people were killed in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza City, while the interior ministry said the five police officers were killed in another strike in western Khan Younis, in the south of the enclave.

Source: Reuters

The Associated Press also put Sunday's toll at eight, including a four-year-old boy, based on reports from local hospitals and media in Gaza City and Khan Younis. Gaza's civil defence and hospitals likewise reported eight dead, according to AFP-syndicated reporting. No victim was named in the wire reports.

Source: AP via SRF

The Israeli military said it struck several militants in Khan Younis, without giving further information. It did not immediately comment on the Gaza City strike, Reuters reported.

Source: Reuters

Israel, which says the Hamas militant group has been rearming and launching attacks in violation of a year-old ceasefire, has stepped up strikes on the group in recent weeks. Hamas has denied trying to carry out attacks or rebuild its arsenal and accuses Israel of undermining the Gaza peace deal — each side's claims are reported here as claims, not as settled fact.

Last year's US-brokered ceasefire calls for the eventual reconstruction of the territory, but little progress has been made, Reuters reported, as negotiators have failed to agree terms for Hamas to disarm or for Israel to withdraw its troops, who control about two-thirds of the territory, where they have ordered residents out. Nearly all of Gaza's more than 2 million residents live in the remaining third of the enclave among the ruins of the war, mostly in makeshift tents and damaged buildings, in the area still under Hamas's effective control.

At least 1,500 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks in Gaza since the ceasefire, according to the territory's health officials, while Israel says four of its soldiers have been killed. Palestinian authorities say more than 74,000 people have been killed in Israel's assault on Gaza, launched after Hamas-led fighters killed about 1,200 people in southern Israel on October 7, 2023. Sunday's strikes are the latest test of a ceasefire that both sides accuse the other of breaking.