GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — Israeli warplanes struck a tent camp sheltering displaced families in the Al-Mawasi area west of Khan Younis in southern Gaza on Wednesday, killing at least five people, including two children, according to local civil defence officials and medics. The military said the Gaza strike was carried out minutes after Hamas gunmen emerged from a tunnel near Rafah and wounded several Israeli soldiers, a sequence of fire and counter-fire that each side cites as evidence the other is breaking a U.S.-brokered cease-fire, Wednesday, Dec. 3, 2025.
Cease-fire under renewed strain after deadly Gaza strike
Gaza’s civil defence agency said the missile slammed into a cluster of tents in Al-Mawasi, an area Israel has previously designated a humanitarian zone, close to the entrance of the Kuwaiti Field Hospital. Officials told reporters, including those from one international outlet, that the victims of the Gaza strike were civilians who had fled earlier fighting and that the dead included a boy and a girl, ages 8 and 10.
Medics said at least 10 people were injured, with some hospital and civil defence officials putting the number of wounded above 30. Images from the scene showed charred tents, scattered bedding and families searching through the sand for relatives’ belongings, underscoring how even areas marked as safe have repeatedly been hit during the war.
Israel has framed the Gaza strike as a targeted killing of a Hamas operative. The Israel Defence Forces said militants earlier “emerged from a tunnel” east of Rafah and opened fire on troops from a reconnaissance unit, injuring four soldiers, one of them seriously, according to an ABC News live blog and other accounts. A separate statement, cited by several outlets, referred to five wounded soldiers, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the tunnel ambush a “clear violation” of the cease-fire.
The U.S.-brokered cease-fire, part of a wider plan to wind down the two-year war, began in October and has sharply reduced large-scale combat but not ended it. Since the truce took effect, Gaza’s health ministry says more than 360 Palestinians have been killed in isolated shootings and limited strikes, while Israel reports three soldiers killed in the same period, figures carried by AFP and a recent Associated Press report. The overall Palestinian death toll from the war has surpassed 70,000, according to health officials in the enclave, while around 1,200 people were killed in Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack in Israel.
Wednesday’s Gaza strike occurred as Israel and Hamas continued the first phase of a cease-fire deal. The agreement links calm in the region to the return of hostages and the gradual opening of the Rafah border crossing. So far under the deal, Hamas has returned 20 living hostages and the bodies of dozens more in exchange for about 2,000 Palestinian prisoners. However, two deceased captives — an Israeli police officer and a Thai agricultural worker — remain unaccounted for, according to Israeli and international officials.
The pattern of clashes followed by retaliatory Gaza strikes has become familiar over the past year. Late-October and late-November air raids that Israel also described as responses to “blatant” cease-fire violations killed 104 and 33 Palestinians, respectively, local medics told the AP. In late October, Prime Minister Netanyahu ordered “powerful strikes” in Gaza after Hamas fighters allegedly opened fire on troops and delayed returning hostage remains, an escalation chronicled by ABC7 News. Months earlier, when the truce was barely a month old, Israel even mobilised reservists amid fears the deal could collapse if Hamas slowed hostage releases, Reuters reported in February.
Beyond the immediate consequences of the latest Gaza strike, aid agencies warn that any sustained escalation could affect plans to reopen Rafah for medical evacuations and broader travel. Israeli officials state the crossing will only fully reopen once the final hostage remains are returned, while Hamas and its ally Islamic Jihad have accused Israel of using the cease-fire to impose new conditions. With tens of thousands of wounded Gazans waiting for treatment abroad and hundreds of thousands still in camps like Al-Mawasi, diplomats say the stakes of each exchange of fire — and each new Gaza strike — extend beyond the front line.
