Eight dead after Israeli strikes hit Gaza City homes

At least eight Palestinians died when Israeli forces struck two residential districts in Gaza City on Saturday, medical officials informed Al Jazeera.

An Israeli warplane levelled a flat in the al-Nasr area, while shelling struck the adjoining al-Zeitoun neighbourhood, according to those sources.

The incidents came as Israel has broadened the zones it is targeting inside Gaza, moving past the so-called "Yellow Line" that its troops are supposed to remain behind under the fragile "ceasefire".

In al-Nasr, two missiles hit a second-floor flat and left five people dead, staff at the Al Shifa hospital complex told Al Jazeera. Witnesses said the structure was wrecked and an adjacent building was also damaged. Medical officials reported that several people in the crowded, pedestrian-heavy surroundings were hurt. Rescue crews were still digging through debris for anyone trapped underneath, and sources cautioned that more fatalities were probable.

Earlier the same day, artillery fire left three dead in al-Zeitoun, medical sources said. They also noted that comparable attacks had lately struck Tel al-Hawa, a nearby district.

Israel acknowledged conducting strikes throughout Gaza, the Associated Press reported.

In October, Israel and Hamas accepted a US-mediated "ceasefire" framed within a wider proposal from President Donald Trump aimed at stopping the conflict and starting reconstruction. Even so, Israeli forces have kept up almost daily attacks that have left at least 1,127 Palestinians dead. Gaza's Health Ministry put the child death toll since the truce took effect at no fewer than 260, and said five Israeli soldiers had also died over that span.

Since the conflict opened in October 2023, at least 73,000 Palestinians have been killed.

Israeli outlets said earlier this week that the army now holds nearly 70 percent of Gaza — far more than the roughly half of the enclave it was meant to occupy under the "ceasefire" deal.

From Gaza, Al Jazeera correspondent Hani Mahmoud described that advance as "shrinking" and "fragmenting" the strip into smaller, cut-off zones, making it "very difficult" for Palestinians to travel between places. He said the trend pointed toward the "erasure of urban life" and the loss of residents' livelihoods.