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ISRAELI Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has ordered “powerful attacks” on Gaza after accusing Hamas of violating the fragile ceasefire brokered earlier this month by U.S. President Donald Trump.
Reuters cited Gaza health authorities stating that at least 26 people were killed in overnight airstrikes on Tuesday, including five in a house in the Bureij refugee camp, four in Gaza City’s Sabra neighbourhood, and five in a car in Khan Younis.
The bombardments continued into early Wednesday across the enclave, witnesses said.
The Israeli military has yet to comment on the strikes, but a senior official claimed that Hamas had “blatantly violated the ceasefire” by attacking Israeli forces in a controlled area of the Gaza Strip.
Earlier, Netanyahu’s office said he had ordered the immediate strikes without specifying the trigger, but later accused Hamas of “handing over the wrong remains” during a process to return Israeli hostages’ bodies.
The prime minister said the remains delivered on Monday belonged to Ofir Tzarfati, who was killed in the Hamas-led assault on Israel on October 7, 2023 — remains that Israeli troops had already partially recovered.
Hamas responded by saying it would postpone a planned handover of another hostage’s body, citing Israel’s own violations of the ceasefire. The group’s armed wing, Al-Qassam Brigades, later claimed to have recovered the bodies of two Israeli hostages, Amiram Cooper and Sahar Baruch, during ongoing search operations.
Hamas said Netanyahu was “looking for excuses to back away from Israel’s obligations” under the truce. The group maintained that it was still committed to the ceasefire agreement, which took effect on October 10 and halted two years of war.
Under the terms of the deal, Hamas released all surviving hostages in exchange for nearly 2,000 Palestinian detainees, while Israel withdrew its forces and halted major military operations. Hamas also pledged to return the remains of all deceased hostages, though it said retrieving them from the ruins and tunnels of Gaza would “take time.”
In Washington, U.S. Vice President JD Vance said he believed the truce was “holding,” despite sporadic violence. “That doesn’t mean that there aren’t going to be little skirmishes here and there,” he told reporters. “We expect the Israelis are going to respond, but I think the president’s peace is going to hold despite that.”
Israeli media earlier reported exchanges of fire between Hamas fighters and Israeli troops in Rafah, though the military declined to comment. Hamas denied involvement in the incident.
Local officials in Gaza said one of Tuesday’s airstrikes hit a residential building near Shifa Hospital, the largest functioning hospital in northern Gaza. The facility itself was also struck, with two people wounded in an attack on a nearby tent in Zawayda, central Gaza.
Meanwhile, search operations for hostage remains have intensified in recent days with the arrival of heavy machinery from Egypt. Excavations have been under way in Khan Younis and Nuseirat, where Hamas fighters have been seen securing tunnel shafts as crews dig deep into the ground.
Gaza’s health authorities say at least 68,000 people have been killed since Israel launched its offensive following the October 2023 Hamas attacks, with thousands more still missing. - October 29, 2025