Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the country’s military to launch “powerful” airstrikes on Gaza on Tuesday, imperiling the fragile U.S.-brokered ceasefire.
“Following security consultations, Prime Minister Netanyahu instructed the military echelon to carry out powerful strikes in the Gaza Strip immediately,” his office said in a statement.
It was not immediately clear if the strikes had been launched. The U.S. State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the move.
Earlier, Netanyahu said that the remains of a hostage returned by Hamas overnight were body parts of another hostage who was recovered in Gaza by Israeli troops almost two years ago.
Under the truce agreed on Oct. 10, Hamas is expected to return all Israeli hostage remains as soon as possible. That
Netanyahu’s instructions come just weeks after Israel and Hamas agreed to the ceasefire. The deal saw the exchange of Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners and detainees, and prompted high hopes that fighting between the two sides would end.
The conflict in Gaza had raged largely uninterrupted since Oct. 7, 2023, after Hamas-led attacks killed 1,200 people in Israel and saw nearly 250 taken hostage. Since then, Israeli forces have killed nearly 70,000 people in Gaza, according to local health officials, and devastated the enclave, leaving a vast majority of the population with inadequate access to food, shelter and medical care. Famine was declared in parts of Gaza in August.
In the weeks following the ceasefire deal, the Israeli military has struck Hamas “to eliminate the threat” posed by militants and “dismantle tunnel shafts and military structures used for terrorist activity.”
Hamas, meanwhile, has reasserted its control over parts of the enclave that Israel has withdrawn from — deploying armed police officers, clashing with rival clans, directly firing on and killing Israeli troops, and carrying out at least one public execution.
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