CAIRO: An Israeli air strike killed two Palestinians, including a three-year-old child, in central Gaza Strip on Sunday.
Gaza medics said the Israeli strike near a bakery in Deir Al-Balah killed one man, Hussam Nusair, a three-year-old boy, Tayyem Hamdan, and wounded several others.
The Israeli military claimed it attacked Hamas, alleging that Nusair advanced attacks against Israeli forces and civilians.
Hamas did not immediately comment on the Israeli military’s allegation.
An October 2025 US-backed ceasefire failed to end strikes by the Israeli military, which Israel claimed aimed to thwart attacks by Hamas and other Gaza fighters.
Hamas says Israel is violating the ceasefire and undermining efforts to implement a broader plan by US President Donald Trump to end the Gaza conflict, which also includes Israeli withdrawals and Hamas disarmament.
Worse Israeli prison conditions
Meanwhile, Israel’s far-right national security minister on Sunday boasted of worsening conditions for Palestinian prisoners as he visited female inmates.
Two months before elections, Itamar Ben Gvir posted a video in which a veiled woman, her face blurred out, said that prisoners had “extremely bad” conditions and “don’t get any rights, and we have particular needs as women”.
“We haven’t bathed for three days and we haven’t changed our underwear,” she said, warning of the risk of disease.
Ben Gvir responds approvingly as he compares the treatment to that of Israeli prisoners held for up to two years by Hamas and other Palestinian groups in Gaza following the October 7, 2023 attacks.
He said that Israeli prisoners had no shampoo and had no such conditions. “I am proud that we have succeeded in reducing the terrorists’ prison conditions to the bare minimum. The summer camps in the prisons are over,” Ben Gvir said.
Ben Gvir, who earlier in his career was convicted of offences including racism, has a history of provocative actions and statements.
The minister drew condemnation recently when he said Israel should kill 30 to 40 Palestinians each night in Gaza.
The Palestinian Authority’s Commission on Detainees Affairs accused Ben Gvir of “brutality, hatred and racism”.
The Palestinian prisoners’ ministry said Ben Gvir’s video “reflects the depths of depravity to which the occupation regime has sunk”.
Published in Dawn, August 31st, 2026
