At least four people, including an 8-year-old girl and a 18-month old child, were killed in Israeli strikes in the Gaza Strip Thursday morning, according to Hamas-affiliated Palestinian media outlets in Gaza.
The IDF did not immediately comment on any of the incidents, but an Israeli security official told The Times of Israel that the strikes were directed at terror operatives.
Meanwhile, the Saudi-owned newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat reported that Hamas was nearing an agreement with mediators to hand over custody of its weapons to a future security force in Gaza, though seemingly not to give them up entirely.
Hamas’s disarmament has been a sticking point in efforts to move forward with US President Donald Trump’s 20-point peace plan for Gaza.
The reports on the latest deaths, citing medical officials, said an Israeli airstrike on a tent encampment in Khan Younis, in the south of the enclave, killed a 20-year-old man and an 8-year-old girl. In the Bureij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip, an airstrike hit a house killing an 18-month-old child and wounding at least eight people, medics said.
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Another Israeli strike targeted a Palestinian man on a bike near a tent encampment housing displaced families in Gaza City, killing one person and wounding 10, medics added.
The Israeli military says it only targets terror operatives in its strikes, but that these fighters often operate from within the civilian population.
Meanwhile, the IDF announced that a Hamas sniper commander and a terrorist who invaded Israel during the October 7, 2023, onslaught were killed in separate strikes in Gaza earlier this week.
צה”ל חיסל ראש חוליית צליפה בגדוד נוציראת של ארגון הטרור חמאס ומחבל שפשט לשטח מדינת ישראל ב-7 באוקטובר
צה”ל תקף בדרום רצועת עזה מוקדם יותר השבוע, וחיסל את אחמד השאם מחמוד לוח, ראש חוליית צליפה בגדוד נוציראת של ארגון הטרור חמאס.
מחמוד לוח פעל כראש חוליית הצליפה האחרון בגדוד… pic.twitter.com/JmJiTczIvV
— צבא ההגנה לישראל (@idfonline) July 30, 2026
One strike on Monday in southern Gaza killed Ahmad Hisham Mahmoud Louh, commander of a sniper cell in Hamas’s Nuseirat Battalion, according to the IDF.
The IDF said a separate strike on Monday in northern Gaza killed Mahmoud Ali Mahmoud Taroush, a platoon commander in Hamas’s military wing, who invaded Israel on October 7.
The military said the two terror operatives were planning attacks on troops and Israeli civilians.
“The terrorists posed a threat to the troops and were eliminated in precise aerial strikes,” the IDF said.
A Palestinian boy walks his bicycle through the rubble of a destroyed building after it was targeted by Israeli strikes the previous night following warnings to evacuate in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip on July 29, 2026. (Eyad Baba/AFP)
Report: Hamas nearing deal on handing arms to new force
Asharq Al-Awsat reported that talks in Cairo between Hamas and mediators Egypt, Qatar and Turkey regarding the US plan for postwar Gaza are nearing agreement on a proposal for the second phase of the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas.
According to the report, there is broad consensus between the parties on the wording of the proposal concerning weapons and disarmament.
Rather than requiring Hamas and the other terror groups in Gaza to fully surrender their arms, to be removed from the Strip or destroyed, the proposal calls for the weapons to be retained in Gaza but transferred to the hands of Palestinian security forces linked to the yet-to-be-installed technocratic National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG). An agreement could be announced within days, the report said.
The proposed police force has reportedly identified 5,000 suitable Palestinian candidates for its first cadet class, but a Board of Peace official said that there is no timeline for the police force’s deployment and that its activity in the Strip is “conditions-based.”
Hamas police officers stand guard as people attend the opening of the Fatah party’s eighth conference at Al-Azhar University in Gaza City on May 14, 2026. (Omar AL-QATTAA / AFP)
Sources close to Hamas said the group was willing to “confine and store” heavy weapons under a Palestinian body, not hand them over to Israel, but Hamas itself did not comment.
The report also said that the agreement would include the entry of the NCAG into the Strip and the deployment of international forces there.
Mediators have been negotiating the implementation of the second phase of Trump’s peace plan for months, with Israel demanding that Hamas fully disarm before reconstruction can move forward.
According to earlier reports, Hamas had previously rejected Board of Peace representative for Gaza Nikolai Mladenov’s proposed language regarding its disarmament.
Even if Hamas agrees to the new proposal, the chances of it being implemented remain uncertain, given the group’s longstanding insistence on retaining its weapons and repeated statements by its leaders over the years that they would not relinquish them until a Palestinian state is established.
Palestinians run for cover as smoke and fire rise during an Israeli strike on the the Al-Muttaqin Mosque in Gaza City on July 28, 2026. (Omar AL-QATTAA/ AFP)
The fragile ceasefire deal in October 2025 attempted to halt a two-year-long war between Israel and Hamas that began when the Palestinian terror group led a murderous invasion of southern Israel on October 7, 2023.
The heaviest fighting has subsided, but at least 1,100 people have been killed in Gaza since the ceasefire took effect, according to the territory’s Health Ministry. The ministry, which is part of the Hamas-led government, maintains detailed casualty records that are seen as generally reliable by UN agencies and independent experts. It does not give a breakdown of civilians and fighters but claims women and children make up most of the dead.
Gunmen have still carried out shooting attacks on troops, and Israel says its strikes are in response to those and other violations. Five Israeli soldiers have been killed since the ceasefire.
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