Early Tuesday morning, Israel began a wave of airstrikes across the Gaza Strip. It said it was hitting dozens of Hamas targets in what it called its biggest attack in the area since the ceasefire in January. At least 200 people were killed, according to Palestinian sources.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he ordered the strikes because talks to extend the truce were not going anywhere. Officials said the operation would go on forever and was likely to grow. The White House said it had been told about what was happening and agreed with what Israel was doing.
The office of Mr. Netanyahu said, “From now on, Israel will act against Hamas with stronger military power.”
The surprise attack shattered a period of relative calm during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan and raised the prospect of a full return to fighting in a 17-month war that has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians and caused widespread destruction across Gaza. It also made people wonder what happened to the twenty or so Israeli hostages that Hamas is thought to still have living.
Hamas said that Mr. Netanyahu broke the ceasefire deal and left the hostages “to an unknown fate.” It said in a statement that mediators should hold Israel “fully responsible for violating and overturning the agreement.” The Associated Press saw blasts and clouds of smoke in the city of Khan Younis in the south. People who were hurt were taken to Nasser Hospital by ambulance. There, they lay on the floor, some screaming, and were treated. A child’s head was wrapped in a bandage while a nurse looked for more injuries. A girl cried as her bloody arm was wrapped in a bandage.
When talks about the second part of the ceasefire did not start as planned in early February, many Palestinians said they thought the war would start up again. Instead, Israel accepted a different plan and stopped sending any food, fuel, or other help to the two million Palestinians who live on the territory to try to get Hamas to agree to it.
“Nobody wants to fight,” Palestinian resident Nidal Alzaanin told the AP by phone from Gaza City. “Everyone is still suffering from the previous months,” he said.
U.S. backs Israel and says Hamas is to blame
The White House tried to say that the new fighting was caused by Hamas. “They could have freed the hostages to extend the ceasefire,” said Brian Hughes, spokesman for the National Security Council. “Instead, they chose refusal and war.” Steve Witkoff, the US envoy, has been leading the mediation efforts with Egypt and Qatar. He had earlier told Hamas that they needed to free the hostages right away “or pay a severe price.” An Israeli source who spoke on the condition of anonymity to talk about the operation said that Israel was attacking Hamas’ military, leaders, and infrastructure, and that the operation would go beyond air attacks. The official said that Hamas was trying to rebuild and plan new strikes. In the weeks after the ceasefire ended, both Hamas militants and security troops quickly went back out into the streets.
Israel Katz, the country’s defense minister, said that if the prisoners aren’t freed, “the gates of hell will open in Gaza.” “The war won’t end until all of our hostages are safe and all of our goals have been met,” he said.
People all over Gaza could hear the explosions. Khalil Degran, a Health Ministry spokeswoman who works out of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the middle of Gaza, said that at least 200 people had been killed. The territory’s civil defense agency said its crews were having a hard time saving people because multiple places were being attacked at the same time.
Talks about a second part of the truce had broken down. The attacks happened two months after the war stopped because of a ceasefire. Over the course of six weeks, Hamas freed 25 Israeli hostages and the bodies of eight more in return for almost 2,000 Palestinian prisoners. This was the first part of the ceasefire.
But the truce ended two weeks ago, and the sides still can’t agree on how to move forward with a second phase that would free the 59 hostages who are still held, 35 of whom are thought to be dead, and end the war for good.
In return for freeing the remaining hostages, Hamas wants the war to end and all Israeli troops to leave the area. Israel says the war won’t end until all hostages are freed and Hamas’s forces and government are destroyed.
Mr. Netanyahu has said many times that he will start the war again.
Mr. Netanyahu’s office said early Tuesday, “This comes after Hamas repeatedly refused to free our hostages and turned down all offers from the U.S. presidential envoy, Steve Witkoff, and from the mediators.”
An official from Hamas named Taher Nunu spoke out against the Israeli strikes. “The international community has a moral choice to make: either it lets the occupation army’s crimes happen again, or it makes a promise to stop the war and aggression against innocent people in Gaza,” he said.
As it was, Gaza was already in a humanitarian crisis. On October 7, 2023, militants led by Hamas stormed into southern Israel and killed about 1,200 people, mostly citizens, and took 251 hostages. This started the war. Most of them were freed as part of ceasefires or other agreements. Israeli troops have only rescued eight and found dozens of bodies.
In response, Israel launched a military attack that, according to local health officials, killed over 48,000 Palestinians and forced about 90% of Gaza’s people to leave their homes. The Health Ministry of the territory doesn’t make a distinction between civilians and rebels, but it does say that more than half of the people who have died are women and children.
The calm helped Gaza and let hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who had been forced to leave their homes go back to what was left of them.
Now that so many Palestinian civilians have gone home, a new ground attack by Israel could also be very deadly. Before the ceasefire, most civilians lived in tent camps that were supposed to keep them safe from the war.
If fighting starts up again, it could make serious divisions within Israel even worse over what will happen to the remaining hostages. Many of the prisoners that Hamas freed came back severely undernourished and emaciated, which put a lot of pressure on the government to keep the ceasefire in place for longer.
The freed hostages have asked the government many times to move forward with the ceasefire and return all the remaining hostages. Tens of thousands of Israelis have also joined mass protests asking for a ceasefire and the return of all hostages.
After Netanyahu said this week that he wants to fire the head of Israel’s internal security agency, the Shin Bet, there will be large protests later this Tuesday and Wednesday. Some people think that Netanyahu is trying to avoid taking responsibility for the mistakes his government made in the Oct. 7 attack and how it handled the war.
Since the ceasefire in Gaza started in the middle of January, Israeli forces have killed dozens of Palestinians who they say came near their troops or went into places they weren’t supposed to be in.
Still, the deal has barely held without a large-scale act of violence. There has been a truce, and Egypt, Qatar, and the US have been trying to help decide what to do next.
Israel wants Hamas to free half of the prisoners they still have in exchange for a promise to work out a long-term peace deal. Instead, Hamas wants to follow the deal that both sides made to end the fighting. This deal calls for talks to start on the second, more difficult part of the ceasefire, during which the remaining prisoners will be freed and Israeli troops will leave Gaza.
