Israel has launched a major assault on Gaza, shattering the fragile two-month-old ceasefire between its forces and Hamas.
Israeli air strikes across the territory early on Tuesday killed at least 232 Palestinians, many of them children, Gaza’s Ministry of Health said.
The dead included at least 77 people in Khan Younis in southern Gaza and at least 20 people in Gaza City in the north, medical sources told Al Jazeera.
Israel strikes also hit locations in central Deir el-Balah and Rafah in the south.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he ordered the military to take “strong action” against Hamas over its refusal to release captives taken from Israel or agree to offers to extend the ceasefire.
“Israel will, from now on, act against Hamas with increasing military strength,” the Prime Minister’s Office said in a statement.
The Israeli military said on Telegram that it was conducting “extensive strikes on terror targets” belonging to Hamas.
Hamas, which governs Gaza, said it viewed Israel’s attacks as a unilateral cancellation of the ceasefire that began on January 19.
“Netanyahu and his extremist government are making a decision to overturn the ceasefire agreement, exposing prisoners in Gaza to an unknown fate,” the Palestinian group said in a statement.
The Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) armed group accused Israel of “deliberately sabotaging all efforts to reach a ceasefire”.
Ahmed Abu Rizq, a teacher in Gaza, said he and his family woke up to the sound of “Israeli strikes everywhere”.
“We were frightened, our children were frightened. We had many calls from our relatives to check, to check [on] ourselves. And the ambulance started to run from one street to another,” Abu Rizq told Al Jazeera, adding that families started to arrive at the local hospital with the “remains of their children” in their hands.
Reporting from Deir al-Balah, Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azzoum said the strikes were concentrated on heavily built-up neighbourhoods, makeshift schools and residential buildings where people have been taking shelter.
“We have heard in the past hour a clear presence of Israeli drones and fighter jets across the skies in the central area and we understand that among those who were found as victims during the attack were newborn babies, children, women and the elderly,” Abu Azzoum said, adding that a number of high-ranking Hamas officials had also been killed.
Israel-Hamas ceasefire talks stalled
Negotiations on the second phase of the ceasefire deal, which would see the release of nearly 60 remaining captives and the establishment of a permanent ceasefire, have been at an impasse over Israel’s insistence that the first stage be extended until mid-April.
Hamas has released about three dozen captives in exchange for nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners since the start of the ceasefire.
Mouin Rabbani, a non-resident fellow at the Middle East Council on Global Affairs, said it was unclear if the attacks marked a single offensive or “the beginning of a larger campaign”.
“The most important element of which, from Israel’s perspective, was negotiations on the second phase leading to a durable ceasefire and a full withdrawal of Israeli troops from the Gaza Strip,” Rabbani told Al Jazeera.
“And that is something that the Israeli government has repeatedly said it would not do.”
Reporting from Jordan’s Amman, Al Jazeera’s Hamdah Salhut said that while Israel has accused Hamas of rejecting various proposals made by negotiators, talks had been stalled after Netanyahu refused to begin negotiations on phase two of the ceasefire deal on February 6.
“Several Israeli analysts, several within the political opposition and several within Netanyahu’s own government said that this was the plan all along, a resumption of the fighting, to go back to full-scale war,” Salhut said.
“And in fact, there’s a new army chief of staff, one who said that 2025 is going to be a year of war – noting that Israel still has a lot of goals to accomplish when it comes to the Gaza Strip, meaning that they are in no way finished with their military action.”
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Israel had consulted with United States President Donald Trump about the strikes.
“As President Trump has made clear, Hamas, the Houthis, Iran – all those who seek to terrorise not just Israel but the US – will see a price to pay, and all hell will break loose,” Leavitt told Fox News.
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