ISRAELI attacks have killed at least three Palestinians in Gaza in the latest violations of its tenuous ceasefire with Hamas, a day after the United States announced the start of the second phase of President Donald Trump’s plan to end Israel’s genocidal war against the Palestinian people in the besieged territory.
A 10-year-old girl, a 16-year-old boy and an elderly woman were killed in Israeli attacks on Friday, as members of a planned Palestinian technocratic committee sat down for the first time in Cairo to prepare for the rollout of phase two of the peace plan.
Palestinian news agency Wafa reported that Israeli forces shot dead 16-year-old Mohammad Raed al-Barawi in northern Gaza’s Beit Lahiya. The boy died “instantly” after being shot in the head by Israeli forces, said the agency.
Earlier, the agency reported the death of 62-year-old Sabah Ahmed Ali Abu Jamea, who was killed by troops firing from military vehicles west of Khan Younis as the army carried out “extensive demolition operations” in the south of the enclave.
Al Jazeera also understands that a 10-year-old girl was struck by a bomb dropped by an Israeli drone in Beit Lahiya, dying shortly after arriving in critical condition at al-Shifa Hospital.
In the 24 hours leading up to Friday afternoon, at least 15 Palestinians were killed, six of them in the bombing of two houses belonging to the al-Hawli and the al-Jarou families in the central town of Deir el-Balah on Thursday evening. Fatalities included a 16-year-old.
Israel announced that day that it had killed Muhammad al-Hawli, a commander in the Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas. It said it had hit “several terrorists … across the Gaza Strip”.
On Friday, Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem said the group believed Israel had committed a “new violation” of the ceasefire by carrying out strikes in Gaza.
At least 463 Palestinians have been killed since the ceasefire entered into force on October 10, according to Gaza authorities.
Israel has reported three soldiers killed over the same period.
As the killing continued in Gaza, a Palestinian technocratic committee set to govern Gaza as part of President Trump’s multi-phase peace plan met for the first time in Cairo.
“The Palestinian people were looking forward to this committee, its establishment and its work to rescue them,” said leader Ali Shaath, an engineer and former deputy minister in the Palestinian Authority (PA), talking to Egypt’s state-owned Al-Qahera News.
The National Committee for the Administration of Gaza will run day-to-day affairs under the oversight of a Trump-led “board of peace”, which is expected to be led by Bulgarian diplomat and politician Nickolay Mladenov.
Shaath has so far been bullish on the committee’s plans, saying he expects reconstruction and recovery to take about three years.
But the United Nations Development Programme estimates it will take seven years just to clear the rubble, and only with uninterrupted supplies of fuel and heavy machinery – by no means guaranteed with Israel continuing to occupy more than 50 percent of the strip behind the so-called “yellow line“.
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Saudi King Leaves Hospital After ‘Reassuring’ Medical Tests — Royal Court
SAUDI Arabia’s 90-year-old King Salman was discharged from hospital after undergoing medical tests in the capital Riyadh, the kingdom’s Royal Court said on Friday, adding that the results were “reassuring”.
The monarch “left the King Faisal Specialist Hospital in Riyadh today (Friday) after undergoing medical tests that proved reassuring”, the royal court said in a statement shared on state media, having announced his admission earlier in the day.
Saudi Arabia, the world’s biggest crude oil exporter, has for years sought to quell speculation over King Salman’s health.
He has been on the throne since 2015, though his son Mohammed bin Salman was named crown prince in 2017 and acts as de facto ruler.
The monarch’s well-being is rarely discussed, but he has been admitted for surgery and tests on multiple occasions in recent years.
In 2024, the Royal Court said he suffered from lung infections, which he recovered from.
He was hospitalised in May 2022, when he went in for a colonoscopy and stayed for just over a week for other tests and “some time to rest”, the official Saudi Press Agency reported at the time.
He was also admitted to hospital in March 2022 to undergo what state media described as “successful medical tests” and to change the battery of his pacemaker.
In 2020, he underwent surgery to remove his gall bladder.