Israeli air strikes on Gaza overnight killed at least 104 Palestinians, including children, in what appeared to be the gravest challenge yet to the increasingly fragile US-brokered ceasefire and the deadliest day since the truce began.
The strikes, one of the bloodiest attacks in the two-year war, killed at least 35 children and injured 200 people, according to Gaza’s civil defence agency. They took place hours after US president Donald Trump said nothing would jeopardise the ceasefire agreement he had helped broker.
Dr Mohammed al-Mughir, the director of humanitarian support and international co-operation at the civil defence in Gaza, told the Guardian: “Among these attacks was the targeting of a cancer patient camp, the Insan camp.”
The toll was confirmed by an Agence France-Presse (AFP) tally of reports from medical officials at five Gaza hospitals that received the dead and wounded.
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Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu ordered the strikes on Tuesday evening after a firefight between Palestinian militants and Israeli troops, and amid growing anger over Hamas turning over body parts of a hostage whose remains Israeli troops had recovered two years before.
Mr Netanyahu called an emergency meeting to discuss what he called Hamas violations of the ceasefire, as far-right figures in the Israeli government clamoured for a return to war.
The bombardment prompted Hamas, which denied responsibility for the gun attack, to delay a planned handover of another hostage’s remains, which had been scheduled for Tuesday night.
Mr Trump, speaking to reporters on Air Force One on Wednesday, said nothing would jeopardise the ceasefire but Israel “should hit back” if its soldiers were killed. “They killed an Israeli soldier. So the Israelis hit back. And they should hit back,” he said.
US vice-president JD Vance said earlier that the ceasefire was holding despite “skirmishes”.
However, Tuesday night’s attack exposed all the frailties of a ceasefire that from the outset has been marred by violence. Before the latest overnight strikes, Gaza’s media office accused Israel of committing 80 violations since the ceasefire began, killing 97 Palestinians and injuring 230.
The Gaza civil defence spokesperson Mahmoud Bassal described the situation in Gaza as “catastrophic and terrifying”, calling the strikes “a clear and flagrant violation of the ceasefire agreement”. He told AFP: “The Israeli strikes targeted tents for displaced people, homes and the vicinity of a hospital in the strip.”
A spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), when asked if the strikes were a resumption of the full-scale invasion, said on Tuesday that the military “can’t elaborate on the scale yet”. On Wednesday the IDF said it had reinstated the Gaza ceasefire.
The Israeli military published footage of what it said were members of Hamas reburying a body in order to “stage a false discovery” for the International Committee of the Red Cross, which it said was Hamas “attempting to create a false impression of efforts to locate the bodies”. Hamas has yet to comment on the claims.
The news has enraged Israelis, with the far-right ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich lashing out at Hamas and calling on Mr Netanyahu to resume the war.
Under the ceasefire agreement, which took effect on October 10th, Hamas is required to return the remains of all Israeli hostages as soon as possible. In exchange, Israel has agreed to hand over 15 Palestinian bodies for each Israeli.
Hamas has so far returned the remains of 15 hostages, with 13 bodies still in the territory. The militant group has said it does not know the precise whereabouts of all the bodies, saying it has lost contact with several of its units that had been holding the captives and were reportedly killed during Israeli bombardments.
Although Mr Trump has conceded that some of the bodies are difficult to reach, he said “others they can return now and for some reason they are not”. “It may have to do with the disarming of Hamas,” he said.
Israel has made Hamas’s disarmament a central objective, describing it as a key condition for bringing an end to the two-year war.
On Sunday, Hamas’s chief negotiator, Khalil al-Hayya, said the group’s weapons were “tied to the existence of occupation and aggression”. He said: “If the occupation ends, these weapons will be handed over to the state.”
It remained unclear whether he was alluding to the still-unformed Palestinian governing authority expected to take over Gaza’s administration once Hamas relinquishes control. – Guardian
