THE Israeli army has killed at least nine people and injured dozens of others across the Gaza Strip since dawn, according to information gathered by Al Jazeera, as Egypt began hosting a new round of talks with leaders from Hamas and other Palestinian factions to salvage a “ceasefire”.
Five people were killed on Sunday in a strike on a police post in the al-Mawasi area near the southern city of Khan Younis, three were killed in the Zeitoun neighbourhood of Gaza City, and one person was killed on a beach in Deir el-Balah in central Gaza.
Major fighting has been paused since October 2025 under the United States-brokered “ceasefire”. But no agreement has been reached to implement a further US-backed plan for Israeli troops to withdraw, Hamas to disarm and Gaza to be rebuilt after more than two years of heavy Israeli bombardment.
Hamas told envoys from the Board of Peace and mediators Egypt, Qatar and Turkiye that ending Israeli attacks in Gaza was essential for any progress, according to sources from the group and officials close to the talks in Cairo who spoke to the Reuters news agency.
The discussions are expected to continue for several days.
Since last October, about 947 Palestinians have been killed and more than 2,900 wounded in continued Israeli attacks. Hamas fighters have killed four Israeli soldiers during the same period.
Apartment buildings, markets, vehicles and cafes have continued to be struck. Families have received displacement orders only minutes before their homes were bombed.
The Israeli military controls about 64 percent of the Gaza Strip, up from the 53 percent envisaged under the ceasefire agreement. Under the areas it controls, the Israeli army has forced the displacement of Palestinians and levelled remaining buildings.
On May 28, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he instructed the military to expand its control of the Gaza Strip to 70 percent.
Following the first phase of the “ceasefire” where Hamas released all remaining captives in exchange for some Palestinians detained in Israeli prisons, the two parties were supposed to enter a second, and more sensitive, phase.
The Palestinian armed group would have disarmed and Israeli forces would have started to pull out of Palestinian territory.
But that transition has been stalled for months as both parties’ positions seem to remain distant on key sticking points, especially disarmament of Hamas and the Israeli army’s withdrawal from the enclave.
On Friday, Husam Badran, a member of Hamas’s political bureau, told Al Jazeera that the group was not going to hand over its weapons yet, saying that the fate of its military arsenal would be decided following comprehensive discussions with other Palestinian factions.
Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza has killed at least 72,971 people, turned most of the territory into rubble and forced the displacement of nearly 1.9 million people in what several prominent scholars and a UN independent inquiry said amounts to genocide.