Nine Killed in Gaza Despite Truce as Hamas Cedes Power

For Belgrade, which has spent months balancing calls to respect international humanitarian law against its own ties with Tel Aviv, Wednesday brought fresh confirmation that the truce in the Gaza Strip exists largely on paper. Israeli fire on July 8 killed at least nine Palestinians, among them two children aged ten and six, in what Palestinian medics describe as the latest breach of the agreement that took effect last autumn.

According to doctors in Gaza, one airstrike hit a tent for displaced families in the Mawasi area southwest of Khan Younis, a zone the Israeli military had earlier declared humanitarian. A second strike was recorded near a school in Gaza City, in the north of the Strip. These are locations where, by the logic of the ceasefire, civilians were meant to be safest rather than exposed.

The death toll since the truce began has itself become a political argument. Since October 10, 2025, when the guns were supposed to fall silent, Israeli attacks have killed at least 1,084 Palestinians and wounded 3,491. A figure of more than a thousand dead during a period officially called a ceasefire is changing the very vocabulary used to discuss Gaza in European capitals, because it is increasingly hard to defend the idea that these are isolated incidents.

Why does the shooting continue despite a signed truce?

The answer lies in the nature of the agreement itself, which is more a framework for de-escalation than a lasting settlement. Israel retains the right to so-called pre-emptive strikes whenever it perceives a threat, and the Palestinian side reads each such strike as a violation. Without an independent monitoring mechanism on the ground, each party presents its own version, and the death toll rises in the space between two interpretations.

That is precisely why this week’s attacks carry added weight. They do not occur in a vacuum, but at the moment the Palestinian side is trying to fulfil its part of the peace plan. Hamas has announced the dissolution of its government in Gaza and the transfer of administration to a Palestinian technocratic committee, a body of experts without direct party affiliation that is meant to take over the enclave’s daily governance. For the plan’s sponsors this was proof that it works, yet the parallel loss of life on the ground drains that message of meaning.

How do Belgrade and Brussels read the handover of power in Gaza?

Handing administration to a technocratic committee is a key test for all sides. For the European Union, which has tied part of Gaza’s reconstruction to the existence of a credible civilian administration, this step opens room for engagement, but also for renewed disappointment if the violence continues. The EU’s High Representative has repeatedly stated that there is no reconstruction without security, and nine dead in a single day hardly fits any definition of a safe environment.

Serbia, which traditionally cultivates ties with both Israel and the Arab world, follows the situation through the prism of its own diplomatic balance. Belgrade is not among the loud critics of Tel Aviv, nor among the states that openly justify every military move. In practice this means Serbian diplomacy chooses its words carefully, aware that any statement on Gaza echoes both in talks about its European path and in relations with the Gulf states, whose capital is arriving in the region ever more visibly.

The technocratic committee has yet to prove whether it can govern an enclave where infrastructure is in ruins and trust between the parties has been reduced to a minimum. If the strikes continue during its mandate, the notion of a truce will lose what little substance it has left. The question that remains is whether a civilian administration without its own security guarantee can function at all, or whether it is condemned in advance to the role of a bystander in someone else’s war. Do you think the technocratic committee can survive while rockets are still falling?