The attacks on Gaza did not stop on Sunday morning. Sunday morning was the deadline a widely shared claim had set for itself, and by the time it arrived the claim had already been deleted, softened and denied. Three Israeli strikes killed eight Palestinians in Gaza on Sunday, August 2, by Al Jazeera's count [5].
The claim came from Mohammed Dahlan, the Palestinian politician acting as an interlocutor in the disarmament talks. On Saturday evening he posted: "After Hamas and the Palestinian factions agreed on the 15-point [disarmament] document, Mr. Jared Kushner confirmed to us that he agreed with the Israeli side that it will stop the attacks on Gaza starting tomorrow morning" [1]. The post followed reports that Hamas and other Palestinian factions had accepted the Board of Peace's 15-point disarmament framework, the plan President Trump announced on Friday [1]. Dahlan deleted the post in less than two hours [1].
The walk-back arrived before the deadline did. At 7:25 on Sunday morning, per the Times of Israel liveblog's timestamp, Dahlan posted a revised version: "Mr. Jared Kushner has informed us that he is working with the Israeli side to halt the attacks on Gaza" [2][3]. Every operative element of the original was gone: the confirmation, the agreement and the start time. A completed commitment had become an ongoing effort with no timing attached [3].
The Israeli government's only on-record statement went further. Energy Minister Eli Cohen, who sits in the security cabinet, told Army Radio on Sunday afternoon: "There is no agreement by Israel to stop military strikes in Gaza" [4]. He also said: "There has not been a cabinet discussion [on the Gaza plan] in the past 72 hours" [4].
What happened instead is a matter of record. In Gaza City, a strike on Al-Sousi Tower killed Abdullah Abu Taif, 33, his wife Abeer Anan, 29, and their son Azzam, 5 [5]. In Al-Qarara, northwest of Khan Younis, a strike killed Mahmoud Al-Hams, 38, his wife Fatima, 37, and their daughter, and wounded three other people [5]. In Deir al-Balah, a strike on a home killed Kamal Abu Muailiq, 68, and his wife Huda, 59 [5]. An overnight strike also damaged medicine warehouses at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital [5]. Since Friday's announcement of the peace plan, Al Jazeera counts 18 people killed in Gaza: two on Friday, eight on Saturday and eight on Sunday [5].
Al Jazeera's own presentation carries a discrepancy we are printing rather than resolving. The article's headline reads "Israel kills five in Gaza despite Trump's Hamas disarmament plan." The article's body itemizes eight deaths on Sunday, strike by strike and name by name, and states the running total of 18; nothing in the piece reconciles the headline's five with the body's eight [5]. We cite the body figures. The body names the dead, and its daily counts sum correctly, two plus eight plus eight [5].
Two things in Dahlan's favor belong in this correction. Kushner's engagement is real: the reporting around the Board of Peace framework describes an active channel between the American team, the factions and the Israeli side, and Dahlan's revised post still asserts that Kushner "is working with the Israeli side to halt the attacks on Gaza" [1][3]. Dahlan also conceded the overstatement himself, faster than most public figures ever do; the deletion came within two hours, and the softened repost preceded the Israeli denial [1][3][4]. The distance between his two posts is the exact distance this correction measures: an effort is not an agreement, and a confirmed start time is not a hope.
The claim as posted asserted a confirmed agreement with a start time of Sunday morning. The record shows a deleted post, a revision claiming only an ongoing effort, a security cabinet minister's flat denial that any halt agreement exists, and eight people killed on the day the attacks were supposed to stop. We rate the claim false. If Israel agrees to a halt in the coming days, that will be its own story, and it will not make the version with the deadline true in retrospect.
