Israel Kills Five Children in Surge of Attacks on Gaza “Safe Zone”

Since the October “ceasefire,” an average of five Palestinians have been killed every day.

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Hamsa Housou lies dead in the morgue of Al-Shifa hospital after being killed in an Israeli attack on her home in Jabaliya. January 8, 2026. (Video provided by Abdel Qader Sabbah).

GAZA CITY—Eleven-year-old Hamsa Housou lay dead on a cold metal table at the morgue in Al-Shifa hospital. Blood covered her face and the upper part of her striped pajamas as one of her relatives gently wiped her mouth and cheek with a damp cloth, crying as he did so. She had been asleep in her bed early Thursday morning when she was fatally struck by Israeli gunfire. Her family’s home in Jabaliya, west of the so-called yellow line, is in an area designated as safe.

“We were sleeping, and suddenly, around 5 a.m., there were bangs—loud bangs and shells,” Hamsa’s uncle, Aouni Housou, said, standing over her small body. “I live upstairs, and there was screaming. We ran downstairs and they said the girl had been injured. We went to see her and she was covered in blood.” It took half an hour for an ambulance to arrive. When they finally reached the hospital, Hamsa had died.

Family members mourn Hamsa Housou, 11, as she lies dead in the morgue of Al-Shifa hospital. January 8, 2026. (Video provided by Abdel Qader Sabbah).

The eleven-year-old was just one of as many as 14 Palestinians, including five children, killed in Israeli attacks across the Gaza Strip over the past 24 hours, according to an Al Jazeera toll. Since the so-called ceasefire went into effect on October 10, Israel has killed Palestinians in Gaza on an almost daily basis. The missile strikes, shootings, and shelling occur in areas both east of the yellow line, which Israeli troops are occupying as part of the initial agreement, and west of it, where the majority of Palestinians are crammed into less than half of Gaza’s territory. At least 425 Palestinians have been killed and over 1,200 wounded over the past three months of the “ceasefire”—a rate of nearly five Palestinians killed every day.

“Every night there is bombing, shooting, fire belts, robots. Every night. Shrapnel hits our home. What ceasefire? This ceasefire is just theater in front of the world. What caused them to kill her?” Housou said, pointing at his dead niece, unable to hold back the tears.

While much of the world’s attention has turned away from Gaza since the “ceasefire” took hold, the genocide has continued, with daily Israeli military attacks and heavy restrictions on life essentials, including medical supplies, food, building materials, and other items.

Over the course of a single day—overnight on Wednesday into Thursday evening—the Israeli military targeted residential homes, schools sheltering displaced Palestinians, and tent encampments. In Mawasi Khan Younis, an area close to the sea, two separate airstrikes killed four Palestinians in their tents on the beach, according to the Palestinian news agency Wafa. Another Palestinian was killed when Israeli forces bombed a tent sheltering displaced people in the Al-Attar area of Khan Younis. In the Jabaliya refugee camp, two Palestinians were killed when Israeli forces struck the Abu Hussein School, which was sheltering several displaced families. In the Al-Tuffah neighborhood northeast of Gaza City, an Israeli airstrike slammed into a residential building, killing two and wounding five.

“My house is next to the house that was bombed. I was in this room next to the veranda. Suddenly something flew and threw me onto the bed. The entire window shattered—all of it. My wife also was thrown onto the bed,” Abu Hassan Alwan told Drop Site, standing in the aftermath of the Al-Tuffah building strike. “Whoever tells you there is a safe area, don’t pay him any mind. The Israelis are allowed to strike wherever they strike. Whatever ‘targets’ they find, they strike. There are no safe areas,” he added. “This ceasefire is not in effect like this.”

The aftermath of an Israeli airstrike on a residential building in the Al-Tuffah neighborhood of Gaza City. January 8, 2026. (Footage by Abdel Qader Sabbah.)

Broken concrete and dust cover an entire floor of the home as family members sort through the wreckage. A large unexploded munition lay in the middle of one room.

“We were shocked by what happened, it was a huge disaster. We are in a green zone, there was a ceasefire and all that, and we were sitting safely in our home,” said Ahmad Akram Alwan, who owns land near the building and was next door at the time of the attack. “We have nothing to do with anything. Then suddenly we find ourselves under the rubble. This is our situation in Gaza.”

In a statement, Hamas called the wave of bombings “a dangerous criminal escalation and a blatant violation of the ceasefire agreement. This is a deliberate attempt to disrupt the situation, evade the agreement’s obligations, and obstruct the transition to the second phase.”

The ceasefire has not progressed beyond the first phase that saw the partial withdrawal of Israeli troops and the exchange of captives. Instead, Israel has been consolidating its control of over 50 percent of the enclave through a combination of the construction of military infrastructure alongside the destruction of existing buildings and appears to be laying the groundwork to establish a permanent presence in the majority of the Gaza Strip.

Drop Site News Middle East Research Fellow Jawa Ahmad contributed to this report. Sami Vanderlip edited the video.