Five more dead in Gaza City: the 'ceasefire' keeps killing

GAZA CITY: An Israeli airstrike killed at least five Palestinians in an apartment building in Gaza City early on Saturday, health and civil defence officials said, in the latest deadly rupture of a ceasefire that has never quite stopped killing.

There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military. Israel says Hamas has been rearming and launching attacks in violation of the October ceasefire, and has stepped up strikes on the group in recent weeks. Hamas has denied trying to carry out attacks or rebuild its arsenal, and accuses Israel of undermining the Gaza peace deal.

The arithmetic of this “ceasefire” is grim. Gaza health officials say at least 1,400 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire since last October's truce took effect; Israel says four of its soldiers have been killed by militants in Gaza over the same period. Palestinian authorities say more than 74,000 people have been killed in Israel's assault on Gaza since Hamas-led fighters killed about 1,200 people in southern Israel in October 2023.

The US-brokered ceasefire was supposed to open the road to reconstruction and a lasting settlement. Instead, negotiators have still not agreed on the two questions that matter most: terms for Hamas to disarm, and terms for Israel to withdraw its troops. Earlier this week, an Israeli airstrike killed the head of Hamas' armed wing in northern Gaza — confirmed by officials on both sides — marking another significant escalation.

What remains is a war conducted by press release and denied by everyone: a truce under which one side's military says the other is violating it, the other side says the truce itself is being hollowed out, and civilians in apartment buildings keep dying in the gap between the two claims. Saturday's five dead join a ledger that grows whether or not anyone calls the killing a war anymore.