Israeli strikes across the Gaza Strip on Sunday killed at least four Palestinians, including 13-year-old Eileen al-Farra, while Palestinians reported heavy tank shelling and quadcopters buzzing overhead. The ceasefire may have lowered the volume of the war machine, but it hasn’t stopped it. It has only changed the rhythm.
Local health officials said the first strike hit a group of people in northern Gaza’s Beit Lahiya, killing two and wounding another. Another Israeli strike in southern Gaza killed a man, according to health officials at Nasser hospital. Eileen al-Farra was killed by shrapnel from Israeli tank shelling in southern Gaza, Nasser hospital said. The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the strikes, but said one of them targeted a “Hamas terrorist,” without elaborating.
The State’s Monopoly on Violence
Israel says it targets Hamas and other militants who pose a threat and acts in response to ceasefire violations. That’s the official language of force: the state names its targets, defines the threat, and decides when the rules apply. Palestinians on the ground get the shelling, the buzzing drones, and the casualty lists.
The heaviest fighting in Gaza has eased after a fragile ceasefire deal was reached in October between Israel and the Hamas militant group, but Palestinians continue to report new casualties almost daily. The ceasefire hasn’t ended the machinery of domination. It has just made the killing less continuous and more administratively tidy.
Gaza’s Health Ministry, part of the Hamas-led government, said Israel has killed more than 1,040 people in Gaza since the ceasefire went into effect. The ministry maintains detailed casualty records that are seen as generally reliable by United Nations agencies and independent experts. It does not distinguish between civilians and militants, but says women and children make up around half of all deaths. Israel has said five soldiers have been killed since the ceasefire.
The war began on Oct. 7, 2023, with a Hamas-led attack on southern Israel that killed some 1,200 people and saw 251 taken hostage. Israel’s retaliatory offensive in Gaza has killed more than 73,050 Palestinians, including those killed since the ceasefire, Gaza’s Health Ministry said. The numbers are staggering. The institutions are familiar. The dead are ordinary people.
Who Gets to Define the Target
The Jerusalem Post said Israel’s targeting strategy is constantly shifting on all fronts. It said that not long ago, Israel was in a war in Lebanon, Syria and Gaza, but that there is now a broad ceasefire across all these fronts. Despite that ceasefire, the IDF announced attacks on all three fronts on Sunday.
In Gaza, the Post said the IDF announced more attacks on Hamas and that the Hamas fighter killed was not a name known for having killed or kidnapped an Israeli during the Oct. 7 massacre. Instead, it said, the person was a Hamas operative who stole an IDF vehicle that day. The Post said the fighter was nowhere near the border or Israeli troops, but was driving, armed, around the center of Hamas-run areas. It said this showed Israel is running out of quality targets in Gaza because it has killed so many senior and mid-level Hamas officials and is targeting just about anyone connected to Hamas and carrying a weapon, however low-ranked, even if they pose no current threat.
That’s the logic of a state at war with a population it has already pulverized. The target list shrinks, the definition of danger expands, and the people underneath are left to absorb the difference.
The Post said that at the start of the US-brokered Gaza deal in October 2025, Israel was very strict and only targeted Hamas fighters who approached its soldiers, and that this change is the clearest and most obvious. It said the Trump administration has given Israel carte blanche to kill Hamas officials in Gaza from the air, as long as it does not lead to large civilian casualties and as long as there is no invasion. The language of restraint is doing a lot of work there. So is the word “carte blanche.”
Ceasefire, Disarmament, and the Same Old Hierarchy
The Post said Hamas has dragged its feet on even partial disarmament since the beginning of the ceasefire, ignoring the 100-day deadline for progress, which passed in the middle of winter, and that when the Board of Peace made Hamas a friendlier offer to get partial disarmament started, the Gaza terror group still played games. It said Israel is hoping more aggressive airstrikes might press Hamas into at least starting a disarmament process.
So the armed rulers on both sides keep their own logic intact. One side bombs from the air and calls it pressure. The other clings to armed authority and calls it resistance. Ordinary people remain the terrain.
The ceasefire deal reached in October between Israel and the Hamas militant group has not brought safety. It has brought a lower-intensity version of the same hierarchy, with military spokespeople, health ministries, and newspaper strategists all explaining who counts, who doesn’t, and which deaths are acceptable enough to fit the paperwork.
Sunday’s strikes fit that pattern neatly. A 13-year-old girl killed by shrapnel. A group hit in Beit Lahiya. A man killed in southern Gaza. A military that didn’t immediately answer for the strikes, then offered a label instead of an explanation. The state doesn’t need to say much when it already controls the sky.