An Israel Defense Forces reservist officer was seriously wounded by gunfire from Palestinian operatives in the northern Gaza Strip overnight, the military said Wednesday.
The IDF responded with a series of strikes on Gaza that Palestinian media said killed at least 20 people.
Despite a US-brokered truce entering its second phase last month violence has continued in the Gaza Strip, with Israel and the Hamas terror group each accusing the other of breaching the agreement that came into effect on October 10, 2025.
The latest bloodshed came days after Israel reopened the Rafah Crossing between Gaza and Egypt — the only exit for Gazans that does not pass through Israel.
According to the IDF, troops of the Alexandroni Brigade came under fire from multiple gunmen during operations on the Israeli side of the Yellow Line, which splits the Strip between areas controlled by Israel and Hamas.
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In response, the military said, tanks opened fire on the gunmen, and airstrikes were carried out.
The IDF said the incident was a “blatant violation” of the ceasefire.
The seriously wounded officer was taken to a hospital, and his family was notified.
Four martyrs, including a child, were killed as a result of Israeli occupation artillery shelling on the Zeitoun and Al-Tuffah neighborhoods, east of Gaza City. pic.twitter.com/50QpYCFam3
— Md.Sakib Ali (@iamsakibali1) February 4, 2026
Palestinian media, citing hospitals in Gaza, reported that 18 people were killed in the overnight Israeli strikes in the Strip. They included 11 killed in Gaza City, according to the reports.
The reports said three people were killed, two of them children aged 16 and 12, in Israeli artillery shelling in Gaza City’s eastern Tuffah neighborhood.
Another three people, including a 5-month-old, were killed by Israeli shelling in the Zeitoun neighborhood of Gaza City, according to the reports.
In addition, three people were reported killed in a strike in southern Gaza’s Khan Younis, according to Palestinian media.
Reports also said there was an Israeli airstrike targeting a tent housing displaced Gazans in the Mawasi area in the Strip’s south. Hamas’s civil defense agency reported two people killed.
The Palestinian Red Crescent Society identified one of the dead as an on-duty Red Crescent medic, Hussein al-Samiri. The Red Crescent also said its field hospital in Mawasi has received at least a dozen people wounded in the strike.
The IDF did not immediately comment on the strikes.
The tolls could not be immediately verified, and Hamas casualty figures do not distinguish between fighters and noncombatants.
Ambulances wait on the Egyptian side of the Rafah Border Crossing with the Gaza Strip on February 4, 2026, days after Israel permitted a limited reopening of the Palestinian territory’s border post.(AFP)
Despite the violence, the Rafah Border Crossing between the Gaza Strip and Egypt opened in the morning as usual, Israel’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) said, countering claims in some Palestinian media outlets.
The crossing opened on Monday for the first time in a year for Gazan Palestinians to enter and leave the Strip, in accordance with the ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas, though the number of people crossing has been limited.
COGAT said that the World Health Organization, “which is responsible for coordinating the arrival of residents from the Gaza Strip to the Rafah Crossing, has not submitted the required coordination details at this stage for procedural reasons.”
“Once the coordination details are submitted as agreed upon, the transfer of patients and their companions into Egypt via the Rafah Crossing will be facilitated,” COGAT said, in reference to Palestinians seeking medical care.
More than 530 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire since the ceasefire took effect, according to Gaza’s Hamas-controlled health ministry. The Gazan figures cannot be confirmed.
Palestinian terror operatives have killed four Israeli soldiers since the truce, according to Israeli authorities.
An Israeli airstrike in the west of Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, January 31, 2026. (Bashar Taleb / AFP)
The attacks and the escalating death toll have rocked the US-backed truce and caused Palestinians in the Strip to say it does not feel like the war has ended.
Saturday was among the deadliest days, with the civil defense agency reporting at least 32 people killed in Israeli attacks, which the military said were in response to a Hamas ceasefire violation.
The IDF said its strikes targeted four commanders in the Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror groups, as well as a weapons depot, an arms manufacturing site, and two rocket launching positions.
The war started with the October 7, 2023, Hamas invasion of southern Israel, in which some 1,200 people were killed and 251 were taken hostage. The body of the final hostage, Ran Gvili, was returned last week, ending the first phase of US President Donald Trump’s plan.
The second phase of Trump’s plan includes complex issues such as Hamas disarmament, which the group has long rejected, further Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, and the deployment of an international peacekeeping force.
US envoy Steve Witkoff held talks with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem on Tuesday, during which Netanyahu insisted that Hamas must be disarmed and the entire Gaza Strip demilitarized before any reconstruction can begin.
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