GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories, March 19, 2026 (BSS/AFP) - Gaza's civil defence agency reported that Israeli airstrikes killed four people on Thursday, while the Israeli military said it had eliminated four militants who had posed a threat to its troops.

The bloodshed was the latest to rock the war-shattered Palestinian territory despite a ceasefire in place since October 10.

It came as Gaza's Rafah border crossing with Egypt reopened for a limited number of people, for the first time since Israel and the United States launched strikes on Iran at the end of February.

The civil defence agency, which operates as a rescue force under Hamas authority, said strikes in two neighbourhoods of Gaza City killed a total of four people.

Al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza City said it received two bodies following an Israeli strike on the Tuffah neighbourhood east of Gaza City.

Gaza City's Al-Shifa Hospital said it had also received two bodies following an Israeli drone strike on the Zeitoun neighbourhood in Gaza City.

The military said troops identified "four armed terrorists" in the area of the so-called Yellow Line -- the de facto boundary behind which Israeli forces have been stationed since the ceasefire took effect.

"Following the identification, the troops struck and eliminated the terrorists in order to remove the threat," it said, adding that the four were killed in two separate incidents.

Media restrictions and limited access in Gaza have prevented AFP from independently verifying casualty figures or freely covering the fighting.

In a separate statement earlier on Thursday, the Israeli military said it had struck and killed Muhammad Abu Shaleh, the military intelligence commander of Hamas's Khan Yunis Brigade.

It said Shaleh had "operated in violation of the ceasefire agreement to rehabilitate the organisation's capabilities in the Gaza Strip and planned to carry out terror attacks against IDF troops and the State of Israel."

Violence has persisted in Gaza despite a ceasefire which came into effect on October 10, with both Israel and Hamas regularly accusing each other of violations.

On Sunday, Gaza's Hamas-run interior ministry said an Israeli airstrike on a police vehicle killed nine officers, with the civil defence reporting another four people killed in an earlier strike.

Gaza's health ministry, which operates under Hamas authority, says at least 677 Palestinians have been killed since the start of the truce.

The Israeli military says at least five of its soldiers have been killed in the same period since October 10.