Senior minister says Israel not halting attacks in Gaza as 9 said killed in IDF strikes

Israeli airstrikes overnight Saturday and into Sunday killed at least nine people, according to local health officials, and a senior Israeli minister vowed that strikes in the territory will not stop despite Hamas signing a US-backed disarmament plan and earlier reports that Israel agreed to halt attacks.

The US announced Friday that the terror group had agreed to the Board of Peace’s disarmament plan, which envisions Israeli strikes ending immediately once it is in place, as well as the transfer of all weapons to a Palestinian police force under the authority of the new technocratic government in Gaza. Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the other main terror faction in the Strip, reportedly also signed off on the plan.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has yet to officially comment on the development, leaving top ministers and anonymous “senior officials” to voice Israel’s disapproval of the plan, despite US President Donald Trump’s assurance that Israel was “very happy” with the deal. Adding to the confusion, a senior Palestinian figure close to the Trump administration said Saturday that Israel had agreed to halt its strikes in Gaza, only to delete the post less than two hours later as Israel stepped up its attacks in the Strip.

Speaking to Army Radio on Sunday, Energy Minister Eli Cohen said that Israel has not signed off on any such agreement.

Cohen, a member of Netanyahu’s top-level security cabinet, said that “there has not been a cabinet discussion [on the Gaza plan] in the past 72 hours.”

“Any armed actor who operates, threatens, that is involved with terrorism, we will eliminate him,” he added, voicing doubt that that Hamas would actually go along with the plan and hand over its weapons, while saying Israel would like to see the group doing so.

“We will of course give the opportunity” for the plan to succeed, Cohen said, noting that Israel preferred that Hamas disarm through diplomatic agreements.

Joining Hamas, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror group has also agreed to the disarmament plan, according to Arab sources cited by the Saudi Al-Arabiya newspaper.

Islamic Jihad did not officially comment on the report. The group is closely linked to and funded by Iran, and is smaller and less powerful than Hamas, but still a major player in the Strip.

Meanwhile, Israeli strikes on Gaza overnight Saturday and into Sunday hit multiple residential buildings and killed at least nine people, including multiple children, authorities in the Strip reported.

Palestinian health officials said Israeli warplanes carried out separate strikes across the enclave in the northern Gaza City, central city of Deir al-Balah, and the southern area of Khan Younis.

A man and his wife were killed and four people were wounded in an airstrike on an apartment in Deir al-Balah, while two more people, including a child, were killed in a strike on an apartment in Gaza City, medics said.

A father, mother, and their 9-year-old son were killed around dawn in a strike on a house in the Mawasi area of Khan Younis.

Another person was killed near Jabalia in northern Gaza.

The military said the strikes in Deir al-Balah were targeting two commanders of Hamas’s elite “Nukhba” force.

The Gaza City and Jabalia strikes also targeted “military operatives” but the military was still reviewing the situation, it said.

The strikes followed similar heavy attacks on Saturday, which the army said targeted several Hamas weapon depots. Local officials said the strikes killed two people, destroyed medical warehouses and damaged a hospital.

The IDF said Sunday morning that the Saturday strikes also killed a Hamas terrorist who invaded Kibbutz Nir Oz during the October 7, 2023, terror onslaught, identified as Salem Jamal Abd al-Rahman Abu Labad.

צה״ל חיסל מחבל מארגון הטרור חמאס שפשט לקיבוץ ניר עוז בטבח ה-7 באוקטובר

צה"ל תקף אתמול בדרום רצועת עזה וחיסל את המחבל סאלם גמאל עבד אלרחמן אבו לבד, ראש חוליית נוח'בה בארגון הטרור חמאס.

המחבל פשט לקיבוץ ניר עוז במהלך טבח ה-7 באוקטובר.

בתקיפה נוספת במהלך סוף השבוע במרכז רצועת… pic.twitter.com/VEwQQHCUqm

— צבא ההגנה לישראל (@idfonline) August 2, 2026

A separate strike in central Gaza on Friday killed Muhammad Abd al-Nasser Muhammad Khatib, identified by the IDF as a Hamas commander in the terror group’s Maghazi Battalion.

The military justified the strikes during the ceasefire by saying that terror operatives had been advancing attacks on troops.

While the heaviest fighting in Gaza has subsided, at least 1,230 people have been killed in Gaza since a ceasefire took effect in October 2025, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry. The toll does not differentiate between combatants and civilians and is not verified, though Israel has generally accepted Hamas’s tally. Israel says its strikes respond to violations of the ceasefire or target operatives posing a threat.

Gunmen have continued to carry out shooting attacks on Israeli troops, and Israel says its strikes are in response to those and other violations. Five Israeli soldiers have been killed since the ceasefire began.

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