Hamas Warns that Israel's New Airstrikes Breach their Ceasefire

This picture taken from the Israeli side of the border with the Gaza Strip shows smoke plumes rising from explosions above destroyed buildings in the northern Gaza Strip on January 14, 2025, amid the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas. (Photo by Jack GUEZ / AFP)
This picture taken from the Israeli side of the border with the Gaza Strip shows smoke plumes rising from explosions above destroyed buildings in the northern Gaza Strip on January 14, 2025, amid the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas. (Photo by Jack GUEZ / AFP)
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Hamas Warns that Israel's New Airstrikes Breach their Ceasefire

This picture taken from the Israeli side of the border with the Gaza Strip shows smoke plumes rising from explosions above destroyed buildings in the northern Gaza Strip on January 14, 2025, amid the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas. (Photo by Jack GUEZ / AFP)
This picture taken from the Israeli side of the border with the Gaza Strip shows smoke plumes rising from explosions above destroyed buildings in the northern Gaza Strip on January 14, 2025, amid the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas. (Photo by Jack GUEZ / AFP)

Hamas warned that Israel's new airstrikes early Tuesday breached their ceasefire and put the fate of hostages in jeopardy.

Israel said it launched the wave of airstrikes across the Gaza Strip because of a lack of progress in ongoing talks to extend the ceasefire. It was not immediately clear if the operation was a one-time pressure tactic or if the 17-month-old war was being resumed altogether.

Hamas said Israel’s government was responsible for an “unprovoked escalation” against Palestinians, The Associated Press said.

Gaza’s ministry of health said at least 44 people were killed in the airstrikes early Tuesday.

“This comes after Hamas repeatedly refused to release our hostages and rejected all offers it received from the US presidential envoy, Steve Witkoff, and from the mediators,” Netanyahu's office said.

Taher Nunu, a Hamas official, criticized the Israeli attacks. “The international community faces a moral test: either it allows the return of the crimes committed by the occupation army or it enforces a commitment to ending the aggression and war against innocent people in Gaza,” he said.

In Gaza, explosions could be heard at various locations and ambulances were arriving at Al Aqsa Hospital in central Gaza.

The strikes came two months after a ceasefire was reached to pause the war. Over six weeks, Hamas released roughly three dozen hostages in exchange for nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners.

But since the first phase of the ceasefire ended two weeks ago, the sides have not been able to agree on a way forward with a second phase aimed at releasing the nearly 60 remaining hostages and ending the war altogether. Netanyahu has repeatedly threatened to resume the war, and early this month cut off the entry of all food and aid deliveries into the besieged territory to put pressure on Hamas.

The war erupted with Hamas' Oct 7, 2023, cross-border attack, which killed some 1,200 people and took 250 others hostage. Israel responded with a military offensive that killed over 48,000 Palestinians, according to local health officials, and displaced an estimated 90% of Gaza's population. The territory's Health Ministry doesn't differentiate between civilians and militants, but says over half of the dead have been women and children.

“Israel will, from now on, act against Hamas with increasing military strength,” Netanyahu's office said.

The ceasefire had brought some relief to Gaza and allowed hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians to resume to what remained of their homes.

But the territory is coping with vast destruction, with no immediate plans to rebuild. A resumption of the war threatens to reverse any progress made in recent weeks toward halting Gaza's humanitarian crisis.

While the ceasefire largely halted the fighting, Israel has left troops in Gaza throughout the past two months and continued to strike targets, claiming that Palestinians were trying to carry out attacks or approaching troops in no-go zones.

A number of strikes earlier Monday killed a total of 10 people, according to Palestinian officials.

Two strikes in central Gaza hit around the urban refugee camp of Bureij. One struck a school serving as a shelter for displaced Palestinians, killing a 52-year-old man and his 16-year-old nephew, according to officials at nearby Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, where the casualties were taken. The Israeli military said it struck Hamas members planting explosives.

An earlier strike killed three men in Bureij. The Israeli military said the men were trying to plant an explosive device in the ground near Israeli troops. Gaza’s Hamas-led government said the men were collecting firewood.

In Syria, meanwhile, Israel seized a zone in the south after the fall of longtime autocrat Bashar Assad in December. Israel says it is a preemptive security measure against the former extremist insurgents who now run Syria, though their transitional government has not expressed threats against Israel.

Strikes in the southern Syrian city of Daraa killed three people and wounded 19 others, including four children, a woman and three civil defense volunteers, the Syrian civil defense agency said. It said two ambulances were damaged. Other strikes hit military positions near the city.

The Israeli military said it was targeting military command centers and sites in southern Syria that contained weapons and vehicles belonging to Assad’s forces. It said the materials’ presence posed a threat to Israel.

In Lebanon, Israel said it struck two members of the Hezbollah militant group in the southern Lebanese town of Yohmor, who it said were “observation operatives.” Lebanon’s state news agency reported two people killed in the strike and two wounded.

The military later said it carried out further strikes on Hezbollah sites in Lebanon, without specifying where. A US-brokered ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah went into effect in late November ending the 14-month war between the two sides, and each side has repeatedly accused the other of violating the deal.

Since the ceasefire in Gaza began in mid-January, Israeli forces have killed dozens of Palestinians who the military says approached its troops or entered unauthorized areas.

Still, the deal has tenuously held without an outbreak of wide violence. The ceasefire’s first phase saw an exchange of some hostages held by Hamas in return for the freeing of Palestinians imprisoned by Israel. Egypt, Qatar and the United States have been trying to mediate the next steps in the ceasefire.

Israel wants Hamas to release half of the remaining hostages in return for a promise to negotiate a lasting truce. Hamas instead wants to follow the ceasefire deal reached by the two sides, which calls for negotiations to begin on the ceasefire’s more difficult second phase, in which the remaining hostages would be released and Israeli forces would withdraw from Gaza. Hamas is believed to have 24 living hostages and the bodies of 35 others.



Hamas Says Open to Talks as Israel Keeps up Gaza Strikes 

This picture, taken from Israel's southern border with the Gaza Strip, shows destroyed buildings in northern Gaza on March 19, 2025. (AFP)
This picture, taken from Israel's southern border with the Gaza Strip, shows destroyed buildings in northern Gaza on March 19, 2025. (AFP)
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Hamas Says Open to Talks as Israel Keeps up Gaza Strikes 

This picture, taken from Israel's southern border with the Gaza Strip, shows destroyed buildings in northern Gaza on March 19, 2025. (AFP)
This picture, taken from Israel's southern border with the Gaza Strip, shows destroyed buildings in northern Gaza on March 19, 2025. (AFP)

Hamas said it remained open to negotiations while calling for pressure on Israel Wednesday to implement a Gaza truce after its deadliest bombing since the fragile ceasefire began in January.

Israel carried out fresh air strikes on Gaza on Wednesday, killing 13 people according to the territory's civil defense agency, after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tuesday's raids were "only the beginning".

The United Nations and countries around the world condemned the high civilian death toll in the renewed strikes, which have killed more than 400 people, according to Hamas-run territory's health ministry.

Hamas is open to talks on getting the ceasefire back on track but will not renegotiate the agreement that took effect on January 19, an official from the group said.

"Hamas has not closed the door on negotiations but we insist there is no need for new agreements," Taher al-Nunu told AFP.

"We have no conditions, but we demand that the occupation be compelled to immediately halt its aggression and war of extermination, and begin the second phase of negotiations."

Negotiations have stalled over how to proceed with a ceasefire whose first phase expired in early March, with Israel and Hamas disagreeing on whether to move to a new phase intended to bring the war to an end.

Instead, Israel and the United States have sought to change the terms of the deal by extending stage one.

That would delay the start of phase two, which was meant to establish a lasting ceasefire and an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, and was swiftly rejected by Hamas, which demanded full implementation of the original deal.

"There is no need for new agreements in light of the existing agreement signed by all parties," Nunu said.

- 'Only the beginning' -

Israel and the United States have portrayed Hamas's rejection of an extended stage one as a refusal to release more Israeli hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners.

Netanyahu's office said he ordered the renewed strikes on Gaza after "Hamas's repeated refusal to release our hostages".

In a televised address late Tuesday, the premier said: "From now on, negotiations will take place only under fire... Military pressure is essential for the release of additional hostages.

"Hamas has already felt the strength of our arm in the past 24 hours. And I want to promise you -- and them -- this is only the beginning."

The White House said Israel consulted US President Donald Trump's administration before launching the strikes, while Israel said the return to fighting was "fully coordinated" with Washington.

The intense Israeli bombardment sent a stream of new casualties to the few hospitals still functioning in Gaza and triggered fears of a return to full-blown war after two months of relative calm.

The roads were once again filled with Palestinian civilians on the move as families responded to evacuation warnings from the Israeli army.

"Today I felt that Gaza is a real hell," said Jihan Nahhal, a 43-year-old from Gaza City, adding some of her relatives were wounded or killed in the strikes.

"Suddenly there were huge explosions, as if it were the first day of the war."

The Gaza health ministry said the bodies of 413 people had been received by hospitals, adding people were still under the rubble.

A spokeswoman for the UN children's agency UNICEF said medical facilities that "have already been decimated" by the war were now "overwhelmed".

- 'Shattering' hopes -

Governments in the Middle East, Europe and beyond called for the renewed hostilities to end.

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said Israel's raids on Gaza "are shattering the tangible hopes of so many Israelis and Palestinians of an end to suffering on all sides".

European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said she told her Israeli counterpart Gideon Saar that the new strikes on Gaza were "unacceptable".

Both Egypt and Qatar, which brokered the Gaza ceasefire alongside the United States, condemned Israel's resort to military action.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said the strikes were part of "deliberate efforts to make the Gaza Strip uninhabitable and force the Palestinians into displacement".

Trump has floated a proposal to move Palestinians out of Gaza, an idea rejected by Palestinians and governments in the region and beyond, but embraced by some Israeli politicians.

Israel's resumption of military operations in Gaza, after it already halted all humanitarian aid deliveries to Gaza this month, drew an immediate political dividend for Netanyahu.

The far-right Otzma Yehudit party, which quit his ruling coalition in January in protest at the Gaza ceasefire, rejoined its ranks with its firebrand leader Itamar Ben-Gvir again becoming national security minister.

The war began with Hamas's October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, which resulted in 1,218 deaths, mostly civilians, according to Israeli figures.

Israel's retaliation in Gaza has killed at least 48,577 people, also mostly civilians, according to figures from the territory's health ministry.

Of the 251 hostages seized during the attack, 58 are still in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.