Women, Children, and Medical Workers Among Over 20 Palestinians Killed in Surge of Israeli Attacks Across GazaAs U.S. media coverage of Gaza has plummeted since the “ceasefire,” Israel has continued to kill civilians on a routine basis.
Drop Site is a reader-funded, independent news outlet. Without your support, we can’t operate. Please consider subscribing or making a 501(c)(3) tax-deductible donation today.  GAZA CITY—The bodies arrived to Al-Shifa hospital in quick succession on Wednesday morning following Israel’s brutal overnight assault on Gaza City. They were carried into the hospital morgue on stretchers covered in grey blankets and emerged soon afterwards wrapped in white shrouds and placed on the ground. Men performed funeral prayers, women and children wept over their loved ones before the bodies were carried away for burial. Israeli strikes on one building in the Tuffah neighborhood in eastern Gaza City killed multiple members of the Haboush family. “It was about 1:30 in the morning—and we were sleeping peacefully. There was nothing around us, nothing near us. We were even far from the yellow line. We were sleeping peacefully in our house when they shelled it,” Abu Mohammed Haboush told Drop Site outside Al-Shifa hospital, his voice breaking with sorrow. “My son was martyred, my nephew was martyred, my niece was martyred, and other children were martyred.”  Bodies arriving at Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City on February 4, 2026. (Video by Ibrahim Haggag.)In total, at least 21 Palestinians were killed and 38 injured in Israeli attacks across Gaza on Wednesday, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, with women, children, and medical workers making up the majority of the dead. “We appeal to the entire world to stand with us. They said there was a truce, a ceasefire—this is not a ceasefire. This is extermination, genocide. This is not a truce, this is genocide against us,” Haboush said. “Stand by us, help us, stop the war, and end the humiliation we are living in—the disgrace and humiliation we endure is shameful. Every other day, our children are martyred. Every other day, our children die.” Since the so-called ceasefire went into effect on October 10, the Israeli military has killed Palestinians in Gaza on a routine basis. At least 566 Palestinians have been killed and 1,500 wounded in just under four months, the equivalent of nearly five Palestinian deaths every day. Yet, the attacks over the past several days—ever since the ceasefire nominally moved into “Phase 2” of the agreement—have been particularly bloody. On Saturday, Israel killed 26 Palestinians in another heavy day of strikes. At Al-Shifa on Wednesday, the children of Yousef Haboush gathered around their father’s lifeless body. Their mother caressed Haboush’s face, the only part of his body uncovered by the shroud. His young son, a child of about five dressed in a brown hoodie, sobbed as he rocked back and forth and cried out, “My dear father.” “They were sitting in their home—there was nothing around them,” Haboush’s mother-in-law Om Mohamed told Drop Site. “Suddenly, shells fell on the house: first on the living room, then on the bedroom, then on the people.”  Bodies arriving at Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City on February 4, 2026. (Video by Ibrahim Haggag.)Among the bodies brought to Al-Shifa was that of Intisar Nizar Salah Al-Rubaie, a doctor and pharmacist who was killed when Israel fired on residential buildings in Al-Tuffah. She and her husband, Ahmad Al-Rubaie, also a doctor and the head of the Pulmonary Diseases department at Al-Shifa, work with the Palestinian Medical Relief Society. The group’s head, prominent Palestinian politician and doctor Mustafa Barghouti, posted condolences on social media. “While sharing in his grief and the grief of her relatives and noble family, it eulogizes her to the Palestinian medical community, from which hundreds of its members have been martyred in the ongoing Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip,” the statement by Barghouti’s group said. In southern Gaza, Hussain Al-Sumairi, a paramedic with the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS), was killed when his ambulance was struck as he headed to tend to casualties in the Al-Mawasi area, west of Khan Younis. “Targeting medical and humanitarian personnel by Israeli occupation forces constitutes a grave violation of International Humanitarian Law, which guarantees protection for medical workers while performing their duties,” PCRS said in a statement online. The Israeli military claimed—without evidence—that one of its soldiers was fired on and injured early Wednesday, prompting the occupation forces to respond with airstrikes and tank fire. In a statement, Hamas rejected the Israeli narrative. “We affirm that the occupation’s criminal claims about targeting one of its soldiers are nothing but a false pretext to justify the continued killing and aggression against our people, and a criminal attempt to impose a permanent reality of abuse and terrorism in Gaza,” the group said in a statement. Hamas added that the escalation in attacks “constitutes a direct continuation of the genocide and aggression, and confirms war criminal Netanayahu’s hidden intentions to disrupt the implementation of the second phase of the ceasefire agreement.” The recent escalation in attacks also comes as media coverage of Gaza by U.S. media outlets has plummeted since the ceasefire agreement, according to a recent study by the media watch group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), falling to their lowest point since Israel’s genocidal assault began in October 2023. While President Donald Trump declared that “The war in Gaza is over,” in October, Israel has violated the agreement over 1,500 times, according to a statement by Gaza’s Government Media Office on Wednesday. In addition to routine targeting of Palestinians, with 99% of those killed civilians, according to the Office, Israeli violations have included the destruction of buildings and the arrest of at least 50 Palestinians in residential areas, away from the yellow line. These violations have also included allowing far fewer aid, commercial and fuel trucks allowed into Gaza than agreed upon in the deal; non compliance with agreed upon Israeli troop withdrawal lines; the blocking of mobile homes and shelter materials; and more. “We affirm that the continuation of these violations, escalations, and transgressions constitutes a dangerous circumvention of the ceasefire agreement and an attempt to impose a humanitarian equation based on subjugation, starvation, and extortion,” the Office said. The official Palestinian death toll of over 71,800 since the war began in October 2023, continues to rise even further as over 700 bodies have been excavated from under the rubble over the past four months, with thousands more missing. On Wednesday, Israel returned the bodies of 54 Palestinians, along with 66 boxes of human remains and body parts, to Gaza through the Red Cross. This brings the total number of bodies returned by Israel to over 400, the vast majority of them unidentified and many bearing marks of abuse and torture. “[The Israelis] want to force us out, to displace us, but God willing, we are patient,” Om Mohamed said, standing in the courtyard of Al-Shifa beside the body of her son-in-law. “No matter how much they kill us and harm us, God willing, we are patient.” Drop Site News Middle East Research Fellow Jawa Ahmad contributed to this report. Sami Vanderlip edited the video.
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Wednesday, February 4, 2026
Women, Children, and Medical Workers Among Over 20 Palestinians Killed in Surge of Israeli Attacks Across Gaza
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