Israel has carried out 2,400 attacks in Gaza during the first six months of the "ceasefire", authorities said on Tuesday, as four more people were killed in a strike on a police car.
In a damage assessment, Gaza officials said 754 people had been killed since the October 10 ceasefire, almost half of them women, children or the elderly. Ismail Al Thawabta, director of Gaza's Government Media Office, told The National the attacks, which have included strikes on civilian areas, homes and public gathering places, were a “clear violation” of the laws of armed conflict.
The 2,400 attacks reported by Gaza officials include 1,100 bombings, 920 shootings and hundreds of other blasts and raids. Israel habitually says – while offering little evidence – that it is striking Hamas fighters or people intruding on the “yellow line” that demarcates Israeli-occupied territory.
It offered no explanation for the incident on Tuesday in which four people were killed in Gaza city. Official Palestinian media said a child was among the dead in a strike on a police car. The Israeli military separately said it killed an “armed terrorist” near the yellow line in northern Gaza.
Among the most concerning developments is the gradual advance of the yellow line. In eastern Gaza city, Musab Al Shawa, 29, describes a life under constant threat near the perimeter.
“The war has never really stopped for us,” he told The National. “We hear the sound of advancing vehicles and shelling all the time. More than once, we were directly targeted,” he says. “Members of my family were injured.”
US President Donald Trump announced the ceasefire in October. A second phase, declared by special envoy Steve Witkoff on January 14, was intended to usher in reconstruction, the disarmament of Hamas and a gradual withdrawal by the Israeli army, But with the US focus now elsewhere in the region, little progress has been made.
Some families have been forced to move several times. Majed Hamdan, 35, and his family fled after his young nephew was injured by gunfire at their displacement centre in Jabalia. He described the past days as feeling like a return to the darkest moments of the war.
“We lived through very difficult hours, as if the war had started all over again,” he said. “We realised the danger was closing in on us,” he says. “So we fled again.”
After fleeing from the Yemen Al Saeed area in Jabalia to the Al Shati camp, he knows that even this new refuge may not last. “Every minute, we fear the yellow line will move again,” he said. “And we will be forced to scatter once more.”
Many others remain behind in high-risk areas, unable or unwilling to move, often because they have nowhere left to seek safety. The escalation comes amid rising tensions on Palestinian land in the West Bank and conflicting interpretations of events in Gaza.
Hazem Qassem, a spokesman for Hamas, accuses Israel of deliberately escalating the situation to “reshape the Gaza Strip” and tighten control through the expansion of the yellow line. He told The National that the group is working with mediators, including the US, to preserve the ceasefire and prevent a return to full-scale war.
“Hamas is not interested in a return to war,” Mr Qassem said, adding that continued attacks risk pushing the situation towards renewed conflict.
Despite the ceasefire, the distinction between war and peace in Gaza has become increasingly blurred. Gunfire, incursions and air strikes, documented in hundreds of incidents, have created a reality in which, for many residents, the war has never truly ended.
For those living along the “yellow line”, the fear is constant and immediate. “We thought things had calmed down,” Mr Hamdan said. “But now it feels like everything can collapse again at any moment.”
