Israeli Strike Kills 33 People In Gaza
At least 33 Palestinians were killed in a wave of Israeli strikes in Gaza on Tuesday night, the Hamas-run Civil Defence agency and hospitals say.
Israel launched the strikes in reaction to what it claimed were Hamas’s breaches of the cease-fire agreement mediated by the United States.
Israel’s defence minister accused Hamas of violating the agreement to release the corpses of dead captives and of carrying out an offensive in southern Gaza on Tuesday that resulted in the death of an Israeli soldier. Hamas maintained its commitment to the ceasefire agreement and asserted that it had “no connection” to the strike.
Israel could “hit back” when its soldiers are targeted, according to US President Donald Trump, who insisted that “nothing” would jeopardise the ceasefire.
According to first responders and witnesses, the Israeli strikes targeted homes, schools, and residential blocks in Khan Younis in the south, Bureij and Nuseirat in the centre, and Gaza City and Beit Lahia in the north.
As explosions rocked several residential locations in Gaza City, witnesses reported seeing “pillars of fire and smoke” soaring into the sky.
Fourteen people were murdered throughout the city, including three ladies and a man who were rescued from the debris of the al-Banna family’s house in the southern Sabra neighbourhood, a Civil Defence spokesman told the BBC early on Wednesday.
In the urban Bureij refugee camp, five members of the Abu Sharar family were killed in a strike on their home in the Block 7 area, he said.
Additionally, he stated that five more persons were killed in Khan Younis after an aircraft struck a car on a route northwest of the city.
The Civil Defence spokesperson stated that the rescue crews were “working amid extremely difficult conditions” and expressed concern that the death toll may increase due to the possibility that other missing persons were buried beneath debris.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office released a brief statement on Tuesday night stating that he had given the order for the military to conduct “forceful strikes” in Gaza, but it did not explain why.
His defence minister, meanwhile, claimed that Hamas had crossed “a bright red line” on Tuesday when it attacked Israeli forces in Gaza.
“Hamas will pay many times over for attacking the soldiers and for violating the agreement to return the fallen hostages,” Katz warned.
An Israeli military official said the attack took place “east of the Yellow Line”, which demarcates Israeli-controlled territory inside Gaza under the ceasefire deal.
The Israeli military declared the death of Master Sergeant Yona Efraim Feldbaum, a reservist soldier, early on Wednesday.
He was a member of a military engineering team operating in the southern city of Rafah when it was ambushed, according to Israeli media.
According to reports, gunmen fired rocket-propelled grenades at the soldiers after emerging from an underground tunnel system.
In a statement, Hamas condemned the Israeli attacks and denied that its fighters had attacked Israeli troops.
“Hamas affirms that it has no connection to the shooting incident in Rafah and affirms its commitment to the ceasefire agreement,” it said.
“The criminal bombardment carried out by the fascist occupation [Israeli] army on areas of the Gaza Strip represents a blatant violation of the ceasefire agreement.”
In the meantime, the group’s military branch declared that Israeli “violations” would cause it to delay returning a hostage’s body that it had found on Tuesday.
The US downplayed concerns that full-scale fighting would resume.
“As far as I can tell, they killed an Israeli soldier,” President Trump said to reporters aboard Air Force One. Thus, the Israelis retaliated, and they ought to do so.
“Nothing is going to jeopardise the ceasefire, he said. “You have to understand Hamas is a very small part of peace in the Middle East, and they have to behave.”
Vice-President JD Vance earlier said that the ceasefire was “holding” despite what he described as “little skirmishes” between the two sides.
After Hamas turned over a coffin containing human remains that did not belong to one of the 13 dead hostages who had been held in Gaza the day before, Israel’s prime minister promised on Tuesday afternoon to take vague “steps” against the organisation.