A Palestinian man sits on the rubble at the site of a residential building targeted overnight by an Israeli strike, following a warning from the Israeli military to evacuate, in Deir el-Balah in the central Gaza Strip, on May 24, 2026.
| Photo Credit: AFP
A pre-dawn Israeli airstrike killed three members of a Palestinian family, including a one-year-old child, in central Gaza on Sunday (May 24, 2026), a hospital said.
Gaza remains gripped with daily violence despite a formal ceasefire in place since October, with both the Israeli military and Hamas accusing one another of violating the truce.
Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital in Deir el-Balah said it had received the bodies of a couple and their infant after an Israeli strike hit a residental apartment in the Al-Nuseirat camp before dawn.
“He was asleep in his house with his wife and son when the missile landed on their bed,” Maram Abu Malouh, the mother of the man killed in the strike, told AFP.
AFP footage showed relatives grieving at the hospital, where the three bodies lay wrapped in white body bags.
The Gaza civil defence agency, which operates as a rescue service under Hamas, confirmed the toll.
Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital said around 10 people were also wounded.
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military about the three deaths, though it said it had struck three Hamas weapons storage facilities in central Gaza over the preceding 24 hours.
The civil defence agency said another Israeli strike early on Monday (May 24) in Deir el-Balah caused no casualties but left vast destruction.
A gaping hole scarred the facade of a building, with vast debris of shattered concrete strewn across the surrounding area, AFP footage showed.
Residents, among them children, were seen picking through the debris at the site of the attack.
A ceasefire has been in place in Gaza since October, but Israel reserves the right to strike targets it deems a threat.
At least 890 Palestinians have been killed since the October 10 ceasefire, according to Gaza’s health ministry, which operates under Hamas authority and whose figures are considered reliable by the UN.
The Israeli military says five of its soldiers have also been during the same period.
Media restrictions and limited access in Gaza have prevented AFP from independently verifying casualty figures or freely covering the fighting.
Published – May 24, 2026 09:12 pm IST
