Israeli media said kites that landed near the fence carried no explosives. Katz still treated a kite or balloon as a drone. Netanyahu's office said neighbourhoods used for launches would be cleared if the launches continued.
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Katz treats a kite as a drone
On Sunday, Defence Minister Israel Katz sat with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the military chief of staff, the head of the National Security Council and senior officers. According to Haaretz, Katz said he had directed forces to respond forcefully to kites, balloons and drones sent from Gaza. In that account a balloon counts as a kite, and a kite as a drone, whether or not it carries explosives. Over the weekend Israeli media reported that several kites believed to have come from Gaza landed near Israeli communities next to the fence, carried no explosives and posed no danger.[1]
Netanyahu's office announces the clearing of launch neighbourhoods
Katz said the measures would include targeting the Hamas commanders he held responsible for the launches and displacing residents from the neighbourhoods the kites were sent from. Netanyahu's office said Israel would intensify strikes and move people out of those neighbourhoods if kites, balloons and drones from Gaza did not stop.[1]
The al-Hasanat family was hit without warning in Deir el-Balah
Gaza's Ministry of Health said at least two Palestinians were killed and four wounded on Saturday. An Al Jazeera correspondent reported that a drone strike hit the al-Hasanat family in Deir el-Balah, in an area crowded with the tents of displaced families, and that the strike came without warning. Israeli forces carried out two demolition operations in Deir el-Balah the same day, advanced into eastern Gaza City and fired artillery in Khan Younis and near camps in central Gaza. The ministry says 1,285 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks since the ceasefire agreement of October 2025, and puts the total since October 2023 at 73,419; the figures are not independently verified. More than two million people are concentrated in humanitarian zones covering roughly 30 per cent of Gaza's area.[2]
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