Israeli attacks killed at least five people in the Gaza Strip on Sunday, including a 9-year-old girl, while Hamas leaders sat in Cairo for another round of Egypt-mediated talks over a U.S.-backed peace plan that still can’t get past disarmament and withdrawals. The machinery keeps moving. People keep dying. And the diplomats keep calling it progress.
The Ceasefire That Didn’t Stop the Killing
Palestinian health officials said Israeli attacks killed at least five people on Sunday. Medics said Israeli gunfire directed at a tent encampment on the eastern side of the Al-Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza killed 9-year-old Tala Abu Matar. The Israeli military did not immediately comment on the girl's death. In Gaza City’s Sabra neighbourhood, an airstrike at a metal foundry killed four people. Witnesses said the site was hit with three Israeli missiles. Israel’s military told Reuters it had struck "terrorist" infrastructure, without giving further details.
The ceasefire agreed in October 2025 between Israel and Hamas halted major fighting in the enclave, but it has failed to stop Israeli attacks that have killed more than 1,000 Palestinians since it took effect. Four Israeli soldiers have been killed by militants in Gaza over the same period. The ceasefire, in other words, has not ended the state monopoly on violence. It has only changed its rhythm.
Talks, Mediators, and the Same Old Deadlock
The latest violence came as Hamas leaders visited Cairo for further talks over implementing the second phase of U.S. President Donald Trump's Gaza peace plan. According to sources close to the talks, the discussions include Hamas disarmament and Israeli army withdrawals, but there had not yet been a breakthrough. The new round of negotiations between Hamas and other Palestinian factions began on Friday and ended on Saturday.
Participating in the talks were the Board of Peace High Representative Nickolay Mladenov and representatives of the three mediating countries, Egypt, Qatar and Turkey. The cast is familiar: armed rulers, foreign brokers, and a peace process that keeps producing meetings instead of relief. The names change. The structure doesn’t.
The two main stumbling blocks in the Egypt-mediated talks are Hamas' obligations to pay Gaza's civil servants and the group's disarmament. Palestinian sources say the first issue appears solvable, but no solution is in sight for the second as long as Israel remains in Gaza. That’s the core of it. One armed authority wants the other to lay down its weapons while its own forces stay in place. The civilians, again, are the ones left to absorb the consequences.
Who Governs, Who Pays, Who Bleeds
Hamas’s role in the talks shows the same problem from another angle. It is not a grassroots force negotiating from outside power. It is a governing authority trying to preserve its position, pay its civil servants, and survive under pressure from a far stronger military machine and a diplomatic process run by states. Israel’s military, meanwhile, continues to strike targets it describes as "terrorist" infrastructure, a label that arrives with no details and no accountability in the Reuters account.
The October 2025 ceasefire was supposed to halt major fighting. Instead, it has become a framework for managed violence, with attacks still killing Palestinians in Gaza and militants still killing Israeli soldiers. The people living under these arrangements do not get to vote on the missiles, the disarmament demands, or the foreign-mediated choreography. They just get the bill.
The Cairo talks, the Board of Peace representative, the mediating states, and the U.S. peace plan all sit inside the same apparatus: states managing a population through armed factions, security demands, and endless negotiation. The language is peace. The method is control. The result, on Sunday, was a dead 9-year-old girl in a tent encampment, four more people killed in a foundry, and another round of talks with no breakthrough in sight.