Israeli strikes on Gaza kill 5 people, including a 9-year-old boy, medics say

Israeli strikes killed five Palestinians, including a 9-year-old boy, in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, health officials reported.

Medics said an Israeli drone killed the child, Adel Al-Najjar, in eastern Khan Yunis in the south of the enclave, while an Israeli airstrike targeted a vehicle in Gaza City, killing four people.

Regarding the strike in Khan Younis, the Israeli military said it had targeted an individual who was approaching the "yellow line" that demarcates the part of Gaza Israel has continued to occupied ever since the cease-fire went into effect in October 2025. It provided no evidence that the individual in question was posing any kind of threat. It also provided no evidence for the killings in Gaza City.

At Nasser Hospital’s morgue, relatives arrived to bid farewell to Najjar's small, white-shrouded body.

People cried next to the body, which lay on a medical stretcher on the floor, and held a special prayer before carrying him to the cemetery for burial.

Collecting cardboard for cooking

The boy was collecting cardboard that the family uses for cooking, relatives said. There has been no electricity in Gaza since the war began in October 2023, and Palestinians have noted Israeli restrictions on the entry of cooking gas.

"We don't have gas. We collect cardboard to bake, they want to eat; they want to drink," said one of the boy's relatives, Sabreen Al-Najjar.

Violence in Gaza has persisted despite an October 2025 cease-fire, with Israel conducting almost daily attacks on Palestinians that have killed at least 800 Palestinians.

Israel says four of its soldiers were killed over the same period.

"Isn’t it shameful what is happening to us? Isn’t it shameful that we bury our children every day, right in front of us? Isn’t it shameful? I swear to God, our hearts are breaking for these children," another relative, Suhaib Al-Najjar, said at the morgue.

Israel has killed more than 72,500 Palestinians since it launched its genocidal war on Gaza in October 2023, according to Gaza health officials.