File image.
Israeli strikes continued across the Gaza Strip throughout this month with little regard to the United States-backed peace framework that took effect last October.
Palestinian health officials and emergency services reported dozens of fatalities in the opening days of the month. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) described its actions as precise operations against militants planning or advancing attacks on troops.
On August 1, Israeli strikes killed at least seven Palestinians in locations including Gaza City, Deir al-Balah, and a tent near Al-Mawasi west of Khan Younis, according to hospital sources and Al Jazeera reporting.
An overnight strike also destroyed or severely damaged medicine warehouses attached to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah. The IDF stated that it had destroyed five Hamas weapons depots, one of them near the hospital.
The following day, August 2, brought the highest reported daily toll in weeks. Palestinian medics said Israeli strikes hit residential areas, apartments, and tents in Gaza City, Deir al-Balah, Khan Younis and Mawasi, killing between 13 and 19 people, among them families and children.
One strike in western Gaza City’s Al-Sousi Tower killed Abdullah Abu Taif, his pregnant wife Abeer Anan, and their five-year-old son. Remains of an unborn child were later recovered.
The IDF, from its side, said it had targeted and killed two Hamas commanders, including one from the elite Nukhba force and another from the Maghazi Battalion, who were planning attacks.
Further strikes on August 3, including one on a vehicle in Gaza City’s Sheikh Ajlin neighborhood, added to the toll before a relative lull set in.
By early August, Gaza health authorities put the cumulative Palestinian death toll since the October ceasefire at more than 1,250, the large majority described as civilians.
A period of reduced major strikes followed under reported U.S. pressure linked to the disarmament roadmap. Palestinian sources continued to document shelling, gunfire, and other incidents along the Yellow Line and in civilian areas.
On August 12, the lull ended. The IDF announced that it had carried out its first significant strikes in more than a week, targeting a Hamas cell commander in Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza who was planning attacks against Israeli forces.
“The terrorist was struck in an aerial strike in order to remove the threat to IDF troops,” the military said, adding that forces under Southern Command remained deployed in accordance with the agreement and would continue to act against immediate threats.
Gaza civil defense and hospital sources reported one Palestinian killed and several wounded, describing the target as civilians traveling by rickshaw or working near damaged structures.
Later, on August 14, the IDF confirmed two additional eliminations. It stated that Hudhaifa Khaled Suleiman Qawari, a company commander in Hamas’s Khan Younis Brigade, had been killed the previous day in a southern Gaza strike. According to the military, Qawari had been involved in training operatives, transferring weapons, and advancing efforts to rebuild Hamas capabilities, and had recently planned attacks on troops.
Separately, the IDF announced that Muhammad Bassam Muhammad Mushtaha, a company commander in the Al-Shati battalion who allegedly held multiple Israeli hostages taken during the October 7 attack of 2023, had been killed in a northern Gaza airstrike approximately two weeks earlier.
On August 16, the IDF reported two precise aerial strikes carried out within an hour of each other. According to the military, the strikes killed “an Islamic Jihad terrorist in the Khan Yunis area and a Hamas terrorist in the Nuseirat area in Gaza.” The military said the two men “advanced terror attacks and were struck in precise aerial strikes to remove the threat.”
The IDF reiterated that Southern Command troops remained deployed in the area and would continue to operate against any immediate threat.
Palestinian news agency WAFA reported that a drone strike hit a residential apartment in Nuseirat, injuring several people. Emergency services and Al Jazeera said Israeli gunfire and another drone attack targeted tents sheltering displaced Palestinians west of Khan Younis, killing one person and injuring others.
Throughout the period, the IDF consistently framed its operations as necessary responses to militants reconstituting capabilities or planning attacks while its forces held positions consistent with the existing agreement.
Palestinian authorities, civil defense teams, and media reports described many of the same incidents as strikes on residential buildings, tents, and civilian gatherings, often without effective prior warning, and catalogued them as ongoing violations of the ceasefire.
The strikes took place against the backdrop of the U.S.-backed Board of Peace 15-point framework, endorsed by UN Security Council Resolution 2803, that called for the phased decommissioning of Hamas and other armed groups’ weapons alongside staged Israeli withdrawals, the deployment of an International Stabilization Force, and the transfer of civilian administration in Gaza. Hamas and other Palestinian factions had accepted the roadmap late in July as a path to ending the conflict.
On August 6, the foreign ministers of Egypt, Qatar, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Indonesia and Pakistan jointly condemned the Israeli strikes, particularly those affecting healthcare facilities and civilians, as breaches of international law that undermined efforts to implement the plan’s next phase.
The same eight countries issued another joint statement on August 16 criticizing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s rejection of the roadmap. Netanyahu declared earlier that the IDF would not withdraw until Hamas was “genuinely disarmed.”
The ministers said the rejection “confirms that Israel now bears responsibility for obstructing the efforts to bring peace in Gaza” and urged the U.S. and the Board of Peace to take concrete steps to ensure compliance. They also reaffirmed support for a two-state solution.
Continued targeted strikes, even at a reduced pace, combined with Israel’s explicit rejection of the roadmap’s sequencing, have raised serious questions about the framework’s viability. Ongoing military operations erode trust, make it harder for Hamas to proceed with disarmament steps, and risk collapsing the political process altogether.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
SouthFront: Analysis and Intelligence
NOW hosted at southfront.press
Previously, SouthFront: Analysis and Intelligence was at southfront.org.
The .org domain name had been blocked by the US (NATO) (https://southfront.press/southfront-org-blocked-by-u-s-controlled-global-internet-supervisor/) globally, outlawed and without any explanation
Back before that, from 2013 to 2015, SouthFront: Analysis and Intelligence was at southfront.com
there is no peace plan for palestine. the usadmin let the isreali apartheid regime do what they want. the usadmin doesn’t even criticise the apartheid regime. there will also be no peace plan for jordan, syria, lebanon and parts of saudi arabia when the apartheid regime decides its their turn to join the ‘greater isreal’.
this lot was a murderous religious tribe, one of twelve, back in the day and now they think they are a country. nothing has changed, isreal is still a murderous religious cult. along with present day america, they are the enemy of the world.
when did the last aid truck enter gaza ? the board of peace has only corrupted media slop to pretend an agreement. the globalist zealots do not honor all non zionist human life. extermination is scheduled far every soul that does not accept enslavement. no consideration will be given. agreements are anti semitic
israel will be condemned by many enabling nations and organisations, hasbara media slop is purpose