Israeli Strikes Kill 3 in Gaza Including 4-Year-Old as Netanyahu Threatens to Intensify Attacks Over Kite Launches

On Sunday, August 23, 2026, Israeli aircraft fired missiles at a warehouse in Az-Zawayda, central Gaza, reducing it to rubble and killing 4-year-old Muhammad Abdel Salam Taha and one other person, with six to seven others wounded, according to Gaza's Hamas-run civil defense service; Al Jazeera's correspondent reporting from the scene said the strike caused a fire and widespread destruction. A separate Israeli strike near Salah al-Din Street in Nuseirat killed one more person, and further strikes wounded people in Khan Younis, Al-Shujaiyya (including journalist Ezz el-Din al-Batsh) and near a tent at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah. The Israeli military said it also struck a weapons-manufacturing site in Az-Zawayda and killed Ismail Abu Ful, whom it identified as commander of a Hamas arms-production site, in Maghazi camp. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz issued a joint warning after four paper kites were launched from Gaza over the weekend — the Israeli military said it found nothing suspicious attached to them — declaring that 'if the launches toward Israel do not stop immediately, [the IDF] will act to intensify strikes against those responsible ... and evacuate populations from areas from which kites, drones and balloons are launched.' Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem dismissed the kites as 'children's toys in the refugee camps' and called the threat a 'fabricated pretext'; Palestinian and Israeli analysts quoted by Al Jazeera the next day made the same accusation, with one calling it 'inconceivable that a state possessing a nuclear arsenal considers a paper kite a security threat.' Gaza health officials say more than 1,280 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since the October 2025 ceasefire took effect, against four Israeli soldiers killed per the IDF.