Gaza's ceasefire just failed to stop a child dying on its anniversary
2 hours ago · 10 October 2026Share
Residential areas in Rafah showing damage from Israeli air strikes on 7 January 2009. File photo. RafahKid Kid from Rafah, Palestine · CC BY-SA 2.0
At least seven people are dead in Gaza this morning.
And here's the thing. It's exactly one year since a US-backed ceasefire was supposed to end the killing.
An eight-year-old girl is among the dead. Her name was Shahd Abdul-Razzaq al-Najjar. An Israeli quadcopter drone killed her a few hours ago in the al-Jawazat area of western Gaza City.
A separate bomb hit near the Haider Abdel Shafi roundabout in Gaza City. Four people died there. Several more were wounded. That's according to medical staff at al-Shifa Hospital.
One more person was killed in a drone attack in Tuffah, in the northeast of Gaza City. And a woman died in Khan Younis from injuries she got in an Israeli attack earlier the same day.
So that's the morning. Seven dead, on the anniversary of the deal meant to stop exactly this.
Now the bigger number. Gaza's Ministry of Health says at least 1,481 Palestinians have been killed since the ceasefire started a year ago today. 5,254 have been wounded.
That's the toll for an agreement that was supposed to have ended the war.
The ceasefire was backed by the United States. It started on 10 October last year. Hamas released the 20 remaining living hostages within three days. Not one rocket has come out of Gaza since.
So on one side, it held.
On the other side, it didn't.
More than 100 humanitarian and human rights groups say so themselves. Amnesty International, the Norwegian Refugee Council, Save the Children, Oxfam and Greenpeace all signed a joint statement a day ago. They say the ceasefire exists quote "in name only".
Their own count, gathered separately from the Health Ministry, says Israeli attacks have killed more than 1,400 Palestinians since the ceasefire began. Including at least 327 children. Two different counts, and they land close together.
The rest of this story is for members.
Contains modified Copernicus Sentinel-2 satellite imagery of the Gaza Strip. File photo. Pierre Markuse from Hamm, Germany · CC BY 2.0
Jan Egeland runs the Norwegian Refugee Council. He says a full year after the ceasefire was signed, almost nothing has improved for Palestinians in Gaza, and he calls that shameful.
Inger Ashing leads Save the Children. She says a ceasefire means nothing if children are still being killed and families still can't rebuild. She says close to one child has died every single day since it began.
And the night before the anniversary looked the same as every other night.
Israeli forces ordered people out of residential blocks in Gaza City and Khan Younis. Then they bombed the homes inside them. A child and a woman were killed trying to get out in time, according to Asharq Al-Awsat.
The Israeli military says those strikes hit four weapons stores belonging to Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Palestinian factions say that's not true. They say Israel is deliberately destroying homes that are still standing.
Israel hasn't said anything about this morning's attacks. Nothing on whether Hamas or Islamic Jihad fighters were the target. Nothing on the Health Ministry's overall numbers either.
Here's another thing worth knowing. The ceasefire set a line through Gaza called the Yellow Line. Israeli forces were not meant to cross it.
They have. Gaza's government media office says Israel now controls more than 63 per cent of the territory, after pushing that line outward all year.
Agnes Callamard runs Amnesty International. She says accountability cannot be buried under the rubble, and that failing to make Israel follow International Court of Justice orders fuels more atrocity crimes.
And the bigger picture. Since the war began on 7 October 2023, Gaza's Health Ministry says at least 74,370 people have been killed and 175,371 injured. Seven Israeli soldiers have been killed since the ceasefire began, by the same ministry's count.
So what did the ceasefire actually stop? The rockets. The hostage-taking.
What it didn't stop is Palestinians dying in Gaza, most days, for a year. On the morning of its own anniversary, an eight-year-old girl was one of them.
Nothing here was paid for by an advertiser. Members are the entire business model. Bronze is where it starts, and it opens the last seven days in full.
