War

At least eight Palestinians have been killed and several others wounded in a series of Israeli strikes and gunfire across the Gaza Strip on Thursday and Friday, according to medical sources and Gaza’s civil defense service.The latest casualty occurred on Friday when Israeli forces stationed east of the central Gaza Strip opened live fire at a group of Palestinians near the Al-Maghazi and Al-Bureij refugee camps.Local sources reported that one Palestinian was killed after being shot in the neck, while several others sustained injuries during the shooting.Friday’s fatal incident follows a wave of attacks across the enclave on Thursday, Gaza’s civil defense rescue service said on Thursday that seven people were killed in separate Israeli strikes through the day, while the Israeli army claimed three of the victims were “military operatives.”Six of the seven were killed in various parts of Gaza City.Two people were killed in a drone strike on a car, while one was killed in a drone attack on a tent in an encampment for displaced people, the rescue service and Al-Shifa hospital said.“Two people, a woman and a child, were killed and others were wounded when Israeli aircraft bombed a residential building” in Gaza City, the civil defense said.
A woman was also killed by artillery shelling in Gaza City, health officials reported.The civil defense reported that “one person was killed by Israeli fire southeast of Deir Al-Balah in central Gaza.”Nearly 50,000 women and girls have been killed or severely injured in Gaza since October 2023, equivalent to one in every 21 women and girls in the enclave, UN Women said on Friday.“More than 38,000 killed and 11,700 left with injuries so severe that they now live with lifelong disabilities,” Sofia Calltorp, UN Women’s chief of humanitarian action, told reporters in Geneva.She said most casualties occurred during the first two years of the war, but violence has continued despite the ceasefire agreement entering into effect a year ago, with 277 women and girls killed since October 2025.Nearly one million women and girls have been forced from their homes, while almost all remain displaced, many living in tents or among the ruins of their homes, she said.Calltorp also warned that the number of female-headed households has doubled, with women now heading one in four households in Gaza.