Four-year-old Mohammed Taha died after an Israeli airstrike hit a central Gaza house on Sunday, and at least five others were wounded, according to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital. The same day, Israel’s military said it struck and killed a Hamas commander in central Gaza. The hospital confirmed the man named, Ismail Abu Ful, was killed. In southern Gaza, another Israeli strike wounded at least seven people, including three children, according to health officials at Nasser Hospital. Defense Minister Israel Katz said he instructed the military to "act immediately and forcefully" to prevent launches of balloons, kites or drones from Gaza toward nearby Israeli communities. The machinery keeps moving. The bodies stay local.
The State Monopoly on Violence
The Gaza strikes landed in a war that has already been defined by organized force and counterforce, with civilians trapped under both. Before the Oct. 7, 2023, attack by Hamas-led militants on Israel, when 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken hostage, burning kites and balloons were sent from Gaza into southern Israel, causing fires and other damage. Hamas accused Israel of "using children’s toys as a pretext" for attacks and further displacement of Gaza residents. That line, like the Israeli one, sits inside a system where armed organizations speak in the language of protection while ordinary people absorb the damage.
In the West Bank, the same logic runs through a different set of uniforms. Police arrested a 16-year-old boy from the Israeli settlement of Avigayil in the beating of a 61-year-old Palestinian, Saeed Muhammad Ibrahim Rabah, outside his home in Khirbet al-Rakeez on Saturday. Rabah told The Associated Press that the violence at his home was an effort to make families leave, but "we will remain, no matter what happens." A year earlier, he lost a leg after being shot by a settler. Separately, the West Bank Health Ministry said a 14-year-old in the Askar refugee camp in Nablus was shot dead by Israeli forces, who did not immediately comment. Nehad Ajouri, the uncle of Islam Maher Ajouri, called the shooting indiscriminate.
Palestinian officials said at least 87 Palestinians have been killed this year in the West Bank, with nearly 1,500 attacks by Israeli settlers and soldiers recorded this year. Three Israelis have been killed by Palestinians in 2026. Reuters said the West Bank is home to about 3 million Palestinians and roughly 500,000 settlers, and noted ongoing violence and resource seizures. The numbers are the map. The map is a wound.
The Oslo Racket, With New Paperwork
In Tehran, President Masoud Pezeshkian said Sunday that the memorandum of understanding signed in mid-June was the best way to move beyond a situation of "neither war nor peace," and said Tehran can’t attract investment nearly six months after the war began. "There is not a single provision in this agreement that amounts to capitulation," Pezeshkian said in a speech published by state-run IRNA. "The supreme leader sets the policies, and we will follow that path." The interim deal opened a 60-day period for talks aimed at ending the war and reaching an accord on Iran’s nuclear program. That period ended last week with no signs of compromise or extension.
The language is familiar: talks, accords, policies, leadership. The structure is older than the latest crisis. One side’s memorandum, another side’s blockade, and a population told to wait while the adults in the room negotiate the terms of its confinement.
Mohsen Rezaei, the new head of Iran’s top security body, warned Sunday that Tehran will see any country’s support for new U.S. economic measures against the Islamic Republic as an "act of war." Rezaei issued the warning on X, and Iranian state media quickly shared it. A day earlier, he had told the state broadcaster in an interview that aired late Saturday, "If (Trump) wants to do something, we will retaliate in a seismic manner." He said Iran would target other oil-shipping routes from the Persian Gulf as alternatives to the Strait of Hormuz. Rezaei, a former Revolutionary Guard commander and military adviser to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, was part of senior appointments widely seen as hardening Tehran’s political and military stance.
There were no confirmed attacks in the Strait of Hormuz over the past 48 hours, a multinational coalition overseen by the U.S. Navy said Sunday, though shipping traffic remained at reduced levels. The U.S. military said its blockade of Iranian ports had redirected 70 commercial ships and disabled three as of Sunday. Iran’s recently created Persian Gulf Strait Authority, sanctioned by the U.S., published a list of dozens of ships it said had violated arrangements for transiting the strait and would face future restrictions such as fines or seizures. The strait had been considered an international waterway before the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran on Feb. 28. Iran and Oman, on the other side of the strait, are now discussing management of it, which likely will include ships paying fees.
Who Manages the Crisis
Pakistani Field Marshal Asim Munir will lead a delegation to Tehran on Monday, Iranian state television reported, citing Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Esmail Baghaei. Two regional officials said the visit was part of Islamabad’s efforts to de-escalate tensions between the United States and Iran and urge them to return to the negotiating table. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.
The state system keeps producing its own intermediaries. Security chiefs, foreign ministries, military coalitions, sanctioned authorities, and anonymous officials all get a turn. The people under the boots get a press release.
The Iranian judiciary’s Mizan news agency reported the latest execution connected to nationwide protests early this year, saying Majid Adineh was arrested Jan. 9 in Mohammadshahr, west of Tehran. The judiciary said forensic examinations indicated the handgun found on him had been fired on Jan. 8 and 9. Mizan said Adineh had joined the unrest following calls by groups opposed to Iran’s government and alleged that he had received training from groups outside the country. He was convicted under Iran’s law imposing harsher penalties for espionage and cooperation with hostile states.
The pattern is plain enough. Protest, arrest, conviction, execution. The state calls it security. The families call it something else.
The memorandum, the blockade, the security warnings, the arrests, the airstrikes, the settler attacks, the military raids: none of it belongs to one flag alone. Different authorities, same monopoly. Different uniforms, same result. People keep paying for the right of rulers to keep ruling.