Israel launched air strikes on Tuesday through the Gaza Strip, killing at least 404 Palestinians, including women and children, according to hospital officials. The surprise bombardment has broken a cease-fire since January and threatened to fully revive the 17-month war.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered strikes after Hamas refused Israeli requests to change the ceasefire agreement. The officials said that the operation was open and had to develop. The White House said it had been consulted and had expressed its support for Israel’s actions.
The Israeli army has ordered people to evacuate eastern Gaza, including a large part of the city in the north of Beit Hanoun and other communities further south, and head towards the center of the territory, indicating that Israel could soon launch income on the ground.
“Israel will now act against Hamas with increasing military force,” said Netanyahu’s office.
The attack during the Ramadan Sacred Muslim month could resume a conflict that has already killed tens of thousands of Palestinians and caused general destruction through Gaza. He also raised questions about the fate of the two dozen Israeli hostages held by Hamas who are still alive.
A senior Hamas official said Netanyahu’s decision to return to the conflict represents a “death sentence” for the remaining hostages. Izzat Al Risheq accused Netanyahu of having launched the strikes to try to save his far -right coalition and called for mediators to “reveal facts” on who broke the truce. Hamas said that at least four senior officials were killed in Tuesday strikes.
There was no report of attacks by Hamas several hours after the bombardment, which indicates that it always hoped to restore the truce.
The strikes occurred while Netanyahu is internal pressure, with mass demonstrations provided for in its management of the hostage crisis and its decision to dismiss the head of the internal security agency of Israel. His last testimony in a long -standing corruption trial was canceled after strikes.
The main group representing families of captives accused the government of withdrawing from the ceasefire, saying that it “had chosen to abandon the hostages”.
“We are shocked, angry and terrified by the deliberate dismantling of the process to make our loved ones from the terrible captivity of Hamas,” said the forum of hostages and disappeared families in a press release.
The Palestinians inspect the damage to the Al-Tabi’in school in the center of Gaza after an Israeli air strike on Tuesday March 18, 2025.
AP photo / Jehad Alshrafi
Stream injured in Gaza hospitals
A strike on a house in the southern city of Rafah killed 17 family members, including at least 12 women and children, according to European hospital, which received the bodies. The dead included five children, their parents and another father and his three children.
In the southern city of Khan Younis, the journalists of Associated Press saw explosions and plumes of smoke. The ambulances brought injured to Nasser hospital, where patients are lying on the ground, some screaming. A young girl cried while her bloody arm was bandaged.
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Many Palestinians said they expected a return to the conflict when talks during the second phase of the ceasefire did not start as scheduled in early February. Israel has rather adopted an alternative proposal and cut all expeditions of food, fuel and other aid to the 2 million Palestinians in the territory to try to put Hamas to accept it.
“No one wants to fight,” said Nidal Alzaanin, a Palestinian resident, in the AP by phone from Gaza City. “Everyone still suffers from previous months,” he said.
The Gaza Ministry of Health said that at least 404 people had been killed in strikes and more than 560 had been injured. He revised his confirmed statement after declaring Tuesday earlier that 413 died and 660 injured. The rescuers were still looking for the dead and injured as the strikes continued. It was among the deadliest days of war.
Israel supports us and blamed Hamas
The White House sought to blame Hamas for renewed fights. The spokesman for the National Security Council, Brian Hughes, said that the militant group “could have released hostages to extend the ceasefire, but rather chose refusal and war”.
An Israeli official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the procedure, said that Israel struck the soldiers, leaders and infrastructure of Hamas and planned to extend the operation beyond air attacks. The manager accused Hamas of having tried to rebuild and plan new attacks. Hamas activists and the security forces have quickly returned to the street in recent weeks after the cease-fire entry into force.
The Netanyahu office said the Israeli leader had organized safe consultations with senior officials. He did not provide more details.
The talks on a second phase of the ceasefire had blocked
The strikes occurred two months after a ceasefire was reached to suspend war. In six weeks, Hamas released 25 Israeli hostages and the bodies of eight others in exchange for nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners in a first phase of the ceasefire.
But since this cease-fire ended two weeks ago, the parties have not been able to agree on a path to follow with a second phase aimed at publishing the 59 remaining hostages, 35 of which are considered dead and ending the conflict.
Hamas demanded the end of the conf; ICT and the total withdrawal of Israeli troops in exchange for the release of the remaining hostages. Israel says that he will not end the conflict before he destroyed Hamas’ governance and military skills and releases all hostages – two goals that could be incompatible.
Netanyahu’s office said on Tuesday that Hamas had “repeatedly refused to release our hostages and rejected all the offers it has received from the American presidential envoy Steve Witkoff, and mediators.”
Israel wants Hamas to disclose half of the remaining hostages in exchange for a promise to negotiate a sustainable truce. Hamas rather wants to follow the ceasefire agreement concluded by the two parties, which calls for negotiations to start the second most difficult phase of the ceasefire, in which the remaining hostages would be released and the Israeli forces would withdraw from Gaza.
A return to the conflict would allow Netanyahu to avoid the difficult compromises requested in the second phase of the agreement and the thorny question of which would govern Gaza. This would also consolidate its coalition, which depends on the far -right legislators who wish to depopulate Gaza and rebuild Jewish colonies.
Gaza was already in a humanitarian crisis
The conflict broke out when activists led by Hamas burst into southern Israel on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mainly civilians and taking 251 hostages. Most have been released in ceases or other transactions, Israeli forces have only eight tens and recovering dozens of bodies.
Israel responded with a military offensive that killed more than 48,000 Palestinians, according to local health officials, and has moved around 90% of the Gaza population. The Ministry of Health of the territory does not make the difference between civilians and activists, but says that more than half of the dead have been women and children.
The ceasefire had brought a certain relief to Gaza and allowed the hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians to take back what remained of their house.
Netanyahu faces growing criticism
The released hostages, some of which have been emaciated, have repeatedly implored the government to advance the ceasefire to return all the remaining captives. Tens of thousands of Israelis have participated in mass demonstrations calling for a ceasefire and the return of all hostages.
Mass demonstrations are scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday following the Netanyahu’s announcement this week that he wishes to dismiss the head of the Shin Bet internal security agency of Israel. Critics castigated this decision as an attempt from Netanyahu to divert the failures of his government during the attack and manipulation of the war of October 7.
Since the ceasefire in Gaza began in mid-January, Israeli forces have killed dozens of Palestinians who, according to the army, approached his troops or have entered unauthorized areas.
However, the agreement was held tenuous without an outbreak of broad violence. Egypt, Qatar and the United States have tried to mediate the next stages of the ceasefire.
Federman reported to Jerusalem and Magdy from Cairo. Journalists from the Associated Press Mohammad Jahjouh in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip; Abdel Kareem Hana in Gaza City, Gaza Strip; Fatma Khaled in Cairo; And Tia Goldenberg in Tel Aviv, Israel, contributed.
