Israeli Strikes Kill at Least Five in Gaza, Including Seven-Year-Old Girl

At least five Palestinians, including a seven-year-old girl, were killed and more than a dozen others wounded on Monday following Israeli air and ground attacks targeting displacement shelters across the Gaza Strip.

Four people died when an Israeli airstrike hit an informal camp housing displaced families in the al-Mawasi area west of Khan Younis, located in southern Gaza, according to first responders and local medical personnel. A separate drone strike in the Remal neighbourhood, west of Gaza City, hit a tent sheltering displaced individuals, killing another man and wounding several bystanders, as documented by Al Jazeera's field coverage.

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The attack in Khan Younis struck makeshift shelters in al-Mawasi, an area that had seen repeated waves of civilians seeking refuge from ground operations. Palestinian Civil Defence spokesman Mahmoud Basal confirmed the immediate casualties, stating that rescue crews recovered bodies directly from the impact point.

“We transported three martyrs, including a child, following an Israeli air strike targeting a camp for displaced people in the al-Mawasi area, west of Khan Younis,” Basal told the AFP news agency. The death toll from the strike subsequently climbed to four after emergency teams searched the wreckage.

Medical officials at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis received the casualties and treated multiple injured civilians, including a woman and another child. In an official medical statement, the hospital noted that victims sustained fatal shrapnel injuries from direct missile impacts. Officials identified three of the four victims in Khan Younis as Hossam al-Zamli, 21, Tamer Abu Sneima, 24, and Jouri al-Soufi, a seven-year-old schoolgirl confirmed by Gaza’s Ministry of Education.

Further north, medical staff at Al-Shifa Hospital reported receiving the body of a man killed when an Israeli quadcopter drone fired directly on a civilian tent situated in the Remal neighbourhood, as verified by Palestinian news agency Wafa.

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Old Girl — verified documentary press visual.

The deadly morning strikes followed an overnight incident at the Shujayea junction on Sunday night, where quadcopter drones operated by Israeli forces dropped incendiary devices onto an encampment. Gaza’s Ministry of Public Works and Housing stated that the fires started around 8:00 p.m. and burned past midnight, consuming tents, bedding, and scarce personal belongings.

The blaze forcibly displaced more than 200 families—representing upwards of 800 people, the vast majority of whom are children, women, elderly citizens, and patients under informal medical observation. The ministry issued an urgent appeal to international humanitarian agencies to provide immediate tents, clean water, and emergency food relief to the families who lost their remaining shelter.

Civil Defence officials noted that the incidents form part of a broader intensification. Over a 24-hour window leading into Monday, Basal reported that Israeli artillery fire and airstrikes had killed 11 individuals and wounded at least 50 across the enclave. The continuous shelling of designated safe pockets and temporary camps has created severe logistical bottlenecks for emergency response teams trying to access critical trauma victims with limited vehicle fuel and destroyed road networks.