Drone strike at al-Qarara kills three men of one family

Three men from the same family were killed on Friday when an Israeli drone struck near the al-Matahin junction at al-Qarara, north of Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, medical sources said. Their bodies were taken to the main hospital in Khan Younis.

One of the dead was named as Taysir Fayez Lafi Abdeen, 28. The other two were both 42: Lafi Fayez Lafi Abdeen and Abdul-Hamid Mohammad Abdeen. Witnesses said two of the three were brothers and the third their cousin, and that all of them were struck outside their home.

Medical sources put Friday's toll across the territory at five. A man was killed by a drone that hit a tent sheltering displaced people at al-Mashahera, east of Gaza City, and another was killed in a strike on the Sabra neighbourhood to the south-west of the city, according to the civil defence.

A man was moderately wounded east of Deir al-Balah by fire from an Israeli military vehicle, according to a hospital source there, and artillery, tank and naval fire was reported at points along the length of the Strip through the day.

What sets al-Qarara apart from most days on this list is that the three deaths fall inside one household. Casualties under the truce have generally come singly, at a rate that leaves each family that loses someone alone with it. Here an extended family lost three adult men in the same second, at a spot beside the house they lived in, and any dependants of all three lost their support at once.

The strike also came eleven days after US President Donald Trump said publicly, in a television interview on 17 August, that Israel should not be carrying out strikes in Gaza, and said Hamas had agreed to give up its weapons under the American-backed plan. The attacks recorded on Friday indicate what that intervention has changed on the ground, which is nothing measurable. More than 1,300 people have been killed since the ceasefire took effect in October, on the health ministry's count.