Gaza ceasefire is back on after new strikes kill more than 100 people
Ambulances and small trucks carrying bodies filled the hospital entrances. In Deir al-Balah, bodies were carried on stretchers or mattresses. A man entered the hospital carrying the body of a young child.
“They burned the children while they were sleeping,” Haneen Mteir, whose sister and nephews were killed in the attack, shouted at the Nasser Hospital morgue in the southern city of Khan Younis.
Palestinians injured in the Israeli army attack were taken to the Masjid al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Balah on Wednesday.Credit: access point
The Palestinian Ministry of Health said that at least 104 people, including 20 women and 46 children, died in the night attacks and 253 people, mostly women and children, were injured.
The Israeli military said on Wednesday that it had struck dozens of Hamas targets, including individuals, observation posts, weapons depots, mortar positions and tunnels.
It was stated that many high-ranking Hamas fighters, including 21 commanders at various levels, were shot. The statement stated that these include militants who took part in the attack on Israel led by Hamas on October 7, 2023, which started the war, including Hatem Maher Mousa Qudra, the Nukhba company commander who led the attack on Ein Hashlosha Kibbutz.
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The military said it would continue to “respond decisively and act decisively to eliminate any threat to the State of Israel.”
Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Oren Marmorstein said Hamas was responsible for the consequences of the ceasefire violation and attributed the high death toll to the militant group using civilians as human shields.
Throughout the war, Israel frequently strikes targets it says are Hamas figures in their homes or in shelters where their families are with other families.
The soldier, identified as Staff Sergeant Yona Efraim Feldbaum, 37, was killed in Rafah by “enemy fire” targeting his vehicle on Tuesday, an Israeli military official said on Wednesday.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss covert military operations, said Israeli troops in the area were attacked multiple times on Tuesday as they tried to destroy tunnels and Hamas infrastructure. According to satellite photos, the Israeli army has destroyed almost the entire city of Rafah in recent months and destroyed almost every building.
Hamas insisted it had nothing to do with the shooting in Rafah, reiterated its commitment to the ceasefire and called on mediators to pressure Israel to stop.
State Department spokesman Marmorstein said Washington was informed about the attacks and that the attacks were carried out in full coordination with the United States.
During his visit to Asia, Trump defended the attacks by saying that Israel was justified in carrying out these attacks after Hamas killed an Israeli soldier who was also a US citizen.
Trump said Israel “must respond” when its soldiers are attacked. But he said he was still confident the ceasefire could withstand increased violence because “Hamas is a very small part of the overall Middle East peace and they have to behave themselves.”
Otherwise, they would be “terminated,” Trump said.
Donald Trump speaks to reporters aboard Air Force One en route from Japan to South Korea on Wednesday.Credit: access point
Netanyahu accused Hamas this week of violating the ceasefire by handing over body parts that Israel said were the partial remains of a hostage captured early in the war. Israeli officials also accused Hamas of staging the discovery of some of the remains by sharing a 14-minute edited video from a military drone on Monday.
Hamas responded in kind on Wednesday, saying the Israeli attacks revealed “Israel’s clear intention to undermine the ceasefire agreement and impose new realities by use of force.” The group also said in a statement that the United States provided Netanyahu with “political cover” to continue his aggression in Gaza.
The prime minister of Qatar, which brokered the ceasefire agreement along with the United States and Egypt, said the ceasefire agreement had been violated “by the Palestinian side”, but it was unclear whether Hamas had links to the gunmen responsible.
Speaking at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani said the conflict was “hugely disappointing and frustrating for us”. “We are in very intensive contact with both sides to ensure that the ceasefire continues.”
The ceasefire agreement requires Hamas to return the remains of hostages in Gaza as soon as possible.
Hamas said it had difficulty finding the hostages’ bodies amid massive destruction in Gaza, while Israel accused the militant group of deliberately delaying their return.
There are still 13 bodies of hostages in Gaza, and their slow return is complicating efforts to advance to the next phases of the ceasefire; These phases address tougher issues such as disarming Hamas, deploying international security forces in Gaza, and deciding who will govern the region.
Israel’s two-year campaign in Gaza has killed more than 68,500 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in the count. The ministry maintains detailed casualty records that are generally considered reliable by UN agencies and independent experts. Israel objected to them without specifying its own fee.
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