Five reported killed in Israeli strike on Gaza City apartment

An Israeli airstrike hit an apartment in the Remal neighbourhood of western Gaza City on Oct. 3, 2026, killing at least five Palestinians and severely wounding several others, according to reports from Al Jazeera, CBC and Middle East Eye. CBC said the Israeli military made no immediate comment.¹²³

Night-time strike and fire

Al Jazeera reported that three strikes hit an apartment in the multi-storey al-Asala building during the night, without prior warning and while residents were sleeping. The broadcaster said the attack damaged floors below the targeted apartment, left people beneath rubble and caused destruction elsewhere in the building.¹

Al Jazeera and CBC reported that the strike started a fire. Al Jazeera reported that Palestinian Civil Defence teams did not put out the blaze until it had burned for at least an hour. Civil defence workers then continued looking through the building for missing people and bodies, the broadcaster said.¹²

Ahmed Al-Dahdouh, identified by CBC as an eyewitness, said residents had been asleep before hearing repeated strikes and explosions. He described children waking and fleeing in alarm, and said he helped retrieve people from the rubble.²

Victims and wounded

Accounts differed slightly in how they described the victims. Both Al Jazeera and CBC reported that women accounted for four of the five deaths; CBC said the victims included a Christian woman and her daughter. Middle East Eye said the dead included three women and a young girl.¹²³

Al Jazeera reported that at least six people were severely wounded and taken to al-Shifa Hospital. Middle East Eye also described several people as severely wounded but did not give a precise figure. Both Al Jazeera and Middle East Eye reported continued Israeli drone flights over the area after the attack; Al Jazeera also said fighter jets could be heard flying low across Gaza.¹³

Al Jazeera said Remal is among Gaza City’s densest residential areas, where thousands of displaced people have been staying in improvised camps. CBC reported that the apartment building was destroyed, while Al Jazeera described extensive damage across the multi-storey structure.¹²

Ceasefire under dispute

CBC reported that at least 1,400 Palestinians had been killed by Israeli fire since the ceasefire reached the previous October. Middle East Eye cited an unconfirmed total of 1,441 Palestinians killed by Friday following Israel’s October 2025 agreement on a ceasefire and captive exchange. It also reported more than 5,030 wounded in near-daily Israeli attacks.²³

Israel says Hamas has been rebuilding its arsenal and carrying out attacks in breach of the ceasefire, according to CBC. Hamas denies seeking to conduct attacks or rearm and accuses Israel of weakening the peace agreement. Israel also says militants have killed four of its soldiers in Gaza since the ceasefire.²

CBC said the ceasefire agreement provides for Hamas to disarm and for Israel to withdraw its troops, with the eventual reconstruction of Gaza also envisaged. The outlet reported that the war began on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas-led militants entered Israel, killing about 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and taking 251 hostages.²