The ceasefire is unraveling in real time
On a Thursday in February 2026, three Palestinians were killed in Israeli airstrikes across Gaza — two civilians in a city neighborhood, one militant in the south — as a ceasefire brokered months earlier continued to fray at its edges. The agreement, meant to pause a war that has claimed more than 72,000 lives since October 2023, now exists less as a truce than as a contested boundary each side accuses the other of crossing. In the space between diplomacy and violence, the human cost accumulates quietly, measured in health ministry figures and rubble where neighborhoods once stood.
- A ceasefire exists on paper, but Thursday's airstrikes — killing three, wounding others — signal that the truce is being honored more in name than in practice.
- Israel's own military acknowledged one of its strikes as a violation of the agreement, a rare admission that reveals how openly the terms are now being bent.
- With at least 600 Palestinians killed since the ceasefire began and four Israeli soldiers dead, both sides are locked in a cycle of accusation that erodes any shared foundation for peace.
- Phase two of the deal — Israeli troop withdrawal and Hamas administrative handover — was meant to open a path toward stability, but each new strike narrows that corridor further.
- Behind the military language and diplomatic frameworks, more than 72,000 people have been killed since October 2023, and an entire territory's infrastructure has been reduced to ruin.
Three Palestinians were killed in Israeli airstrikes across Gaza on Thursday — two in the Tuffah neighborhood of Gaza City, where medics reported several others wounded, and one militant in the south whom Israeli forces described as an imminent threat. In an unusual move, the Israeli military itself characterized the southern strike as a violation of the existing ceasefire, an acknowledgment that the operation, whatever its justification, breached the terms of the agreement.
The ceasefire, brokered by the United States and in effect since October, has been deteriorating steadily. Israel says four of its soldiers have been killed by militants since the truce began. Gaza's health ministry reports at least 600 Palestinian deaths from Israeli fire in that same period — a toll layered atop the far larger devastation of the war itself, which began after Hamas's October 7, 2023 attack killed approximately 1,200 people in southern Israel. Since then, more than 72,000 Palestinians, mostly civilians, have been killed, and the territory's hospitals, schools, and water systems have been systematically destroyed.
The agreement had been expected to move into a second phase — one involving Israeli troop withdrawals and a Hamas handover of administrative control — offering at least the outline of a path toward rebuilding. But the rhythm of strikes, counter-accusations, and acknowledged violations suggests that pathway is closing. Thursday's deaths are not exceptions to the ceasefire's logic; they are expressions of it, each one a sign that the agreement is coming apart in real time.
Three Palestinians died in Israeli airstrikes across Gaza on Thursday, according to health officials and military statements from both sides—a sequence of strikes that underscores how fragile the ceasefire has become in the months since it took hold.
In Gaza City's Tuffah neighborhood, an airstrike killed two people and wounded several others, medics reported. The Israeli military offered no immediate response to that report. Separately, in the southern part of the enclave, Israeli forces said they killed a militant they described as an imminent threat after he crossed into an area still under Israeli occupation. The military characterized that operation itself as a violation of the truce—an unusual acknowledgment that suggested the strike, however justified in their assessment, breached the terms of the agreement.
The ceasefire, brokered by the United States, began in October and has been deteriorating steadily. Both Israel and Hamas have accused each other of violations. Israel says four of its soldiers have been killed by militants since the truce took effect. Gaza's health ministry reports that at least 600 Palestinians have died from Israeli fire in that same period—a figure that sits alongside the far larger toll from the war itself, which erupted after Hamas's October 7, 2023 attack on southern Israel killed 1,200 people by Israeli count.
The broader devastation is difficult to overstate. More than 72,000 people, mostly civilians, have been killed by Israeli fire since the war began, according to Gaza's health ministry. The territory itself has been reduced to rubble. Entire neighborhoods have been flattened. The infrastructure that sustained ordinary life—hospitals, schools, water systems—has been systematically destroyed.
The ceasefire was supposed to change that trajectory. In January, the agreement moved into a second phase in which Israel was expected to withdraw troops further from Gaza while Hamas was due to hand over control of the territory's administration. That phase represented a potential pathway toward something resembling stability, or at least the possibility of rebuilding. But the pattern of strikes and counter-accusations suggests that pathway is narrowing. Each violation, each death, each military operation justified by one side and condemned by the other, chips away at the agreement's credibility. Thursday's strikes are not anomalies in that pattern—they are part of it, another data point in a ceasefire that is unraveling in real time.
Citações Notáveis
Israeli military described the incident as a violation of the U.S.-brokered ceasefire— Israeli military statement
A Conversa do Hearth Outra perspectiva sobre a história
Why would the Israeli military describe its own operation as a ceasefire violation?
Because they're acknowledging the strike happened in an area where they're supposed to have withdrawn. It's a way of being transparent about what they did while still defending why they did it—the militant posed an imminent threat, they say. But admitting the violation is also a way of signaling that the rules are breaking down.
And the two killed in Gaza City—were they militants or civilians?
The medics called them Palestinians. The Israeli military didn't comment on that strike at all, which is telling. When they kill someone they consider a legitimate target, they usually say so. The silence suggests either they don't know who was hit, or they know and prefer not to explain.
How much of the 72,000 death toll happened before the ceasefire?
The vast majority. The war was at its most intense in the first months after October 7th. But the ceasefire hasn't stopped the dying—600 more in a few months. That's the real story. The war didn't end; it just got quieter and slower.
What happens if the second phase falls apart entirely?
Then you're back to open conflict in a territory that's already been destroyed. The second phase was supposed to be about withdrawal and handover, about moving toward something resembling normal life. If that collapses, there's no framework left. Just occupation and resistance and more strikes like Thursday's.