Early on Tuesday, attacks on hundreds of targets ended a weeks-long standoff over extending the ceasefire that stopped fighting in January. Gaza’s civil defense agency has reported the death toll from a massive Israeli campaign launched throughout the Palestinian territory to have risen to more than 220 people, including children.
Agency spokesman Mahmud Basal told AFP, “More than 220 martyrs were transferred to hospitals in the Gaza Strip, most of them children, women and the elderly, as a result of the aggression; the military operation is ongoing and affects schools and camps sheltering displaced people.”
Strikes were recorded at northern Gaza, Gaza City, the Deir al-Balah, Khan Younis and Rafah in central and southern Gaza Strip.
Claiming to have hit dozens of targets, the Israeli military stated the strikes would last as long as required and would go beyond air strikes, therefore increasing the possibility that ground forces from Israel will start operations.
The attacks were considerably more extensive than the consistent string of drone strikes the Israeli military has reported against individuals or small groups of suspected fighters and follow weeks of fruitless efforts to arrange an extension to the truce agreed upon January 19.
As wounded were brought in, mounds of white plastic sheet-smeared dead could be seen stacked in hospitals battered by 15 months of shelling.
Although the Palestinian Red Crescent said that its teams handled 86 fatalities and 134 injured, private vehicles took others to overburdened hospitals.
Officials at Al-Ahly Hospital in Gaza City, Al-Aqsa Hospital in the central Gaza Strip, and Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis—all of which had suffered great damage during the war—said that overall they had received about 85 dead. Authorities reportedly separately stated that sixteen members of one family in Rafah, southern Gaza, had been slain.
The Gaza health ministry’s spokesman claimed the dead count was at least 200.
According to Hamas, Israel has broken the truce deal, therefore casting doubt on the fate of 59 hostages still kept in Gaza.
The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu charged Hamas of “repeated refusal to release our hostages” and turning down recommendations from US President Donald Trump’s Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff.
“Israel will, from now on, act against Hamas with increasing military strength,” it declared in a statement.
According to a White House spokesman in Washington, Israel had conferred upon the US government before to the strikes targets on mid-level Hamas commanders and leadership officials as well as infrastructure belonging to the militant group.
White House spokesman Brian Hughes said: “Hamas could have released hostages to extend the ceasefire but instead chose refusal and war.”
Witnesses reached by Reuters reported Israeli tanks shelled areas in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, causing many people who had returned to their homes to flee and move northward to Khan Younis.
standoff
Following the end of an initial phase in the ceasefire, which saw thirty-three Israeli hostages and five Thais returned by fighter groups in Gaza in exchange for some 2,000 Palestinian prisoners, negotiating teams from Israel and Hamas had been in Doha as mediators from Egypt and Qatar sought to close the gap between the two sides.
Supported by the United States, Israel had been advocating for the release of the last 59 hostages still under custody in Gaza in return for a longer-term truce that would have stopped hostilities until following the Jewish Passover holiday in April and the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.
In line with the provisions of the original ceasefire agreement, Hamas had been insisting on heading to negotiations for a permanent end to the conflict and a complete withdrawal of Israeli soldiers from Gaza.
“We demand that the mediators hold Netanyahu and the Zionist occupation totally responsible for violating and undoing the agreement,” the organization added.
There were several mishaps during the first phase and each side charges the other of not honoring the provisions of the January truce agreement. But up until recently, a complete comeback to the combat has been prevented.
Israel had threatened many times to resume fighting should Hamas refuse to release the detainees it still retains, and had stopped assistance shipments into Gaza.
While Palestinian health officials and witnesses reached by Reuters reported damage in several locations of Gaza, where hundreds of thousands of people are living in improvised shelters or destroyed buildings, the army did not disclose specifics regarding the attacks executed in the early hours of Tuesday.
At least three houses were struck in Deir Al-Balah in central Gaza after a building in Gaza City, on the northern end of the strip, collapsed. Furthermore, medics and witnesses claim that the strikes land targets in the southern towns of Khan Younis and Rafah.
Senior Hamas official Mohammad Al-Jmasi, a member of the political office, and relatives—including grandkids who were at his house in Gaza City when it was struck by an airstrike—were among those dead, according to Hamas officials and relatives. At least five prominent Hamas officials as well as family members perished overall.
After 15 months of fighting, much of Gaza is already in ruins. This started on October 7, 2023 when hundreds of Hamas-led militants stormed Israeli towns around the Gaza Strip, killing roughly 1,200 people and kidnapping 251 hostages into Gaza according Israeli estimates.
Palestinian health officials estimate that the Israeli campaign in retaliation has killed more than 48,000 people and wrecked most of the infrastructure and homes in the enclave, including the hospital network. There are reportedly thousands of dead buried beneath the debris.
