Israel shatters Gaza ceasefire as renewed strikes kill over 410
GAZA CITY
Israel on Tuesday unleashed its most intense strikes on the Gaza Strip since a January ceasefire, with rescuers reporting 400 people killed, and Hamas accusing Benjamin Netanyahu of deciding to "resume war" after a deadlock on extending the truce.
"So far, 413 martyrs have arrived in hospitals in the Gaza Strip," a health ministry statement said, adding: "A number of victims are still under the rubble and work is underway to recover them."
Colleagues in the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) were reporting early Tuesday that "many medical facilities are literally overwhelmed across Gaza", Tommaso Della Longa, spokesman for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, said at a briefing in Geneva.
The army ordered Palestinian civilians to evacuate several areas in the Gaza Strip, as the military launched a surprise aerial bombing campaign on the enclave.
Israel's Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said on Tuesday that a wave of deadly strikes in the Gaza Strip, after weeks of truce, was "not a one-day attack".
"We found ourselves at an impasse — no hostage being released and no military action... We struck Hamas and additional terror targets in Gaza. This is not a one-day attack. We will continue the military operation in the coming days," Saar told US pro-Israel lobby AIPAC's Board of Directors in Jerusalem, according to a statement.
Army spokesman Avichay Adraee said Palestinians must leave the towns of Beit Hanoun in northern Gaza and Khuza’a and Abasan in the south, calling these areas “dangerous combat zones.”
The White House confirmed that Israel consulted U.S. President Donald Trump's administration before launching the wave of strikes, which rescuers said killed mostly women, children and elderly.
The U.S. said Tuesday that Hamas had chosen war by refusing to release hostages.
"Hamas could have released hostages to extend the ceasefire but instead chose refusal and war," National Security Council spokesman Brian Hughes said in a statement.
Hamas leader Sami Abu Zuhri told AFP Tuesday that Israeli strikes that killed more than 400 people overnight in the Gaza Strip were an attempt to force the group's "surrender", and called the United States "complicit" in the escalation.
"The aim of the massacres committed by the occupation in Gaza is to undermine the ceasefire agreement and attempt to impose a surrender agreement, writing it in the blood of Gaza," Abu Zuhri told AFP in a statement.
Netanyahu's office said the operation was ordered after "Hamas's repeated refusal to release our hostages, as well as its rejection of all of the proposals it has received from U.S. Presidential Envoy Steve Witkoff and from the mediators.
"Israel will, from now on, act against Hamas with increasing military strength," said the statement.
"We will not stop fighting as long as the hostages are not returned home and all our war aims are not achieved," Defense Minister Israel Katz said.
"If it does not immediately release all the hostages, the gates of hell will open, and it will face the full might of the IDF (military) in the air, sea, and on the ground until its complete destruction," the Israeli defense chief was quoted as saying in a ministry statement as he visited the Tel Nof airbase.
Hamas named the head of its government in the Gaza Strip, Essam al-Dalis, among a list of officials it said were killed in the latest strikes.
"These leaders, along with their families, were martyred after being directly targeted by the Zionist occupation forces' aircraft," said the Hamas statement, which also named interior ministry head Mahmud Abu Watfa and Bahjat Abu Sultan, director-general of the internal security service, among those killed.
A Hamas official told AFP Tuesday that the group was "working with mediators to curb the aggression."
"Hamas adhered to the ceasefire agreement and implemented it precisely, but the Israeli occupation reneged on its commitment and reversed it by resuming aggression and war," the official told AFP, adding that "Hamas and the resistance factions are in constant session to assess the situation and working with mediators to curb the aggression."
Hamas also said it blamed the U.S. administration's "unlimited political and military support" for Israel for a deadly wave of air strikes in Gaza.
"With its unlimited political and military support for the occupation (Israel), Washington bears full responsibility for the massacres and the killing of women and children in Gaza," Hamas said in a statement.
Yemen's Houthi rebels condemned on Tuesday Israel's wave of strikes on Gaza, vowing to escalate its own operations in support of its ally Hamas after threatening to renew attacks on Israeli shipping in the Red Sea.
"We condemn the Zionist enemy's resumption of aggression against the Gaza Strip," the Huthis' supreme political council said in a statement.
"The Palestinian people will not be left alone in this battle, and Yemen will continue its support and assistance, and escalate confrontation steps," it added.
An Israeli official told AFP the military operation would "continue as long as necessary" and was expected to "expand beyond air strikes".
In a statement, Hamas said: "Netanyahu and his extremist government have decided to overturn the ceasefire agreement."
"Netanyahu's decision to resume war is a decision to sacrifice the occupation's prisoners and impose a death sentence on them," it said, accusing the Israeli prime minister of using the conflict as a political "lifeboat" to stay afloat amid domestic crises.
AFP footage showed people rushing stretchers with injured people, including young children, to the Nasser hospital in Khan Younis. Bodies covered with white sheets were also taken to the hospital's mortuary.
Mohammed Jarghoun, 36, was sleeping in a tent near his destroyed house in Khan Younis when he was woken by huge blasts.
"I thought they were dreams and nightmares, but I saw a fire in my relatives' house. More than twenty martyrs and wounded, most of them children and women."
Ramez Alammarin, 25, described carrying children to hospital southeast of Gaza City.
"They unleashed the fire of hell again on Gaza," he said of Israel, adding that "bodies and limbs are on the ground, and the wounded cannot find any doctor to treat them.
"They bombed a building in the area and there are still martyrs and wounded under the rubble... fear and terror. Death is better than life."
White House: Israel consulted US
Mediated by Qatar, Egypt and the United States, the initial phase of the ceasefire took effect on January 19, largely halting more than 15 months of fighting in Gaza triggered by Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel.
That first phase ended in early March, and while both sides have since refrained from all-out war, they have been unable to agree on the next steps for truce talks.
Israel has also been carrying out near-daily strikes on Gaza, but not on the scale of Tuesday's operation.
In a post on Telegram in the early hours of Tuesday, the Israeli army said it was "conducting extensive strikes on terror targets belonging to the Hamas terrorist organisation in the Gaza Strip".
Israel ordered all schools close to the regions neighbouring Gaza shut, as the government said it would ramp up military action against Hamas.
U.S. envoy Witkoff told CNN on Sunday he had offered a "bridge proposal" that would see five living hostages, including Israeli-American Edan Alexander, released in return for freeing a "substantial amount of Palestinian prisoners" from Israel jails.
Hamas had said it was ready to free Alexander and the remains of four others.
Witkoff said Hamas had provided "an unacceptable response" and "the opportunity is closing fast".
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed that Trump's administration had been consulted ahead of Israel's Tuesday operation.
"As President Trump has made it clear, Hamas, the Houthis, Iran, all those who seek to terrorise not just Israel, but also the United States of America, will see a price to pay — all hell will break loose," she said in the televised interview.
Deadlock
During the first phase of the truce agreement, Hamas released 33 hostages, including eight deceased, and Israel freed around 1,800 Palestinian detainees.
Since then, Hamas has consistently demanded negotiations for the second phase.
Former U.S. president Joe Biden had outlined a second phase involving the release of remaining living hostages, the withdrawal of all Israeli forces left in Gaza and the establishment of a lasting ceasefire.
Israel, however, seeks to extend the first phase until mid-April, insisting that any transition to the second phase must include "the total demilitarisation" of Gaza and the removal of Hamas, which has controlled the territory since 2007.
The talks are now at an impasse, with both sides sticking to their positions and accusing each other of obstructing progress.
Israel has cut aid and electricity to the territory during the talks deadlock.
"It's so hard for me to think about what they're (hostages) going through right now because I know that feeling," freed Israeli captive Omer Shem Tov said in a recently released video.
"It's a terrible feeling and it has to stop as soon as possible."
Despite the ceasefire, local authorities in Gaza had reported almost daily violations by the Israeli army.
Israeli attacks have killed more than 48,500 Palestinians since October 2023, most of them women and children, and left Gaza in ruins.
The International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants in November last year for Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.
Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its war on the enclave.
