On Wednesday, December 3, the Israeli military struck Gaza after saying that Hamas fighters had attacked one of its units. The incident was the latest episode of violence to test a cease-fire that has been in place for nearly two months.
According to the Israeli army, the target was a Hamas operative in Khan Younis in southern Gaza. The strike, it said, was carried out in response to a Hamas attack in nearby Rafah that injured five Israeli soldiers. Suhaib al-Hamss, director of the Kuwait Specialized Hospital in Khan Younis, said the Israeli strike killed at least six people—a man, two women and three children—and that many others were wounded in a camp for displaced residents.
The cease-fire was reached in October, yet outbreaks of violence remain frequent, including Israeli strikes on Gaza. The military says it is targeting Hamas fighters, while Palestinian medics report that many of the dead are civilians, including children.
Some key provisions of the agreement have been carried out—most notably the release of all surviving hostages. Around 250 Israelis and foreign nationals were seized during the October 7, 2023, Hamas attacks that triggered the war in Gaza.
On Wednesday, Hamas and Islamic Jihad, Gaza’s second-largest armed faction, handed over the remains of a Thai farm worker. The body of the last remaining captive, an Israeli police officer, has yet to be returned.
A funeral for Palestinians killed the previous day in an Israeli strike. December 4, 2025.
It remains unclear whether there has been any progress toward demilitarizing Gaza, which Israeli and American officials say is essential to securing a long-term cease-fire.
In Rafah, a Hamas gunman opened fire on an Israeli armored personnel carrier that had arrived after a suspicious individual was spotted in a nearby building, a spokeswoman for the Israeli military said. One soldier was critically wounded, she added.
Video footage of the Israeli strike on Wednesday evening showed a cluster of tents engulfed in flames as people tried to extinguish the fire by dousing it with water.
Dr. al-Hamss said by phone that a large number of dead and wounded were brought to the field hospital. Medical staff provided basic treatment before transferring patients to a larger facility with greater resources. Many of the injured suffered shrapnel wounds, he said.
«It was total chaos», he said, «a completely catastrophic scene».