GAZA CITY — Israeli drone strikes hit several areas of the Gaza Strip on Saturday, killing six Palestinians, according to local health officials cited by Al Jazeera, in the latest violence reported roughly a year after a ceasefire agreement took effect between Israel and Hamas.
Gaza’s Health Ministry said Israeli attacks had killed six Palestinians and injured 43 others in the past 48 hours. The ministry said the death toll since the October 2025 ceasefire stood at 1,511, with 5,375 people injured and 838 bodies recovered. The figures are the ministry’s own and are attributed to it here; Israeli authorities had not issued a detailed response to the latest round of strikes in the initial reports.
The continuing toll on children was highlighted on Friday by UNICEF, the United Nations children’s agency. Speaking to reporters in Geneva, spokesman Ricardo Pires said more than 340 children had been killed in Gaza since the ceasefire began. He said seven children had died in attacks over the previous two weeks, with at least 33 others seriously injured.
UNICEF said about 800,000 children remained displaced, many living in tents or unsafe buildings as winter approaches. Humanitarian agencies have repeatedly warned that families in makeshift shelters face the hardest conditions of the year in the coming months, with damaged water, heating and health systems across the territory.
The space in which Gaza’s population lives has also continued to shrink, according to mapping published by Al Jazeera on October 12, which showed Israeli forces controlling or restricting access to about 65 percent of the territory. The “Yellow Line,” initially established to mark Israeli military positions after a partial withdrawal under the ceasefire, has been pushed further into Palestinian areas, the report said, and the remaining accessible area is home to about 2.1 million people.
Food remains a central pressure. On Friday, Gaza’s Health Ministry warned that more than 1.4 million Palestinians were projected to face crisis-level food insecurity or worse for the rest of the year. Aid groups say deliveries, while continuing, have not removed the underlying shortage for a population that has been displaced repeatedly during three years of war.
Background: the ceasefire that took effect in October 2025 halted the large-scale fighting that followed the October 2023 attacks and Israel’s ensuing campaign in Gaza, but sporadic strikes, shootings and disputes over the lines of control have continued throughout the year. Palestinian officials have renewed calls for international monitors to oversee the ceasefire more closely, and mediators involved in the original truce face fresh pressure to address the recurring violence in upcoming talks.
Why it matters: the gap between a formal ceasefire and conditions on the ground is now measured, by the United Nations’ own count, in hundreds of children killed since the truce began. Unless the monitoring and enforcement of the agreement change, residents and aid agencies expect the pattern of periodic deadly incidents to continue alongside the formal halt in large-scale fighting.
Source: Al Jazeera reporting summarised by Vesper News, October 18, 2026.
