United States President Donald Trump insists that the Washington-brokered ceasefire in Gaza is holding, despite Israeli forces killing more than 100 Palestinians, including 46 children.
In about 12 hours from Tuesday to Wednesday, Israeli attacks on Gaza killed at least 104 Palestinians and wounded 253 others, according to Gaza’s Ministry of Health.
“These documented crimes add to the long list of ongoing violations against our people,” the Palestinian Civil Defence in Gaza said in a statement, demanding an “immediate and comprehensive ceasefire” across the Strip.
One of the latest attacks hit a tent housing displaced people in Deir el-Balah, in central Gaza, medical sources told Al Jazeera. Other attacks targeted the northern and southern parts of the enclave.
The US president defended Israel’s actions on Wednesday, citing reports that a 37-year-old Israeli soldier had been killed in southern Gaza. A brief statement from the Israeli military did not specify when the soldier was killed but said his family had been notified before the information was released.
“As I understand it, they took out an Israeli soldier,” Trump told reporters on board Air Force One as he travelled from Japan to South Korea, saying he heard the soldier was apparently killed by sniper fire. “So the Israelis hit back and they should hit back. When that happens, they should hit back,” he added, calling Israel’s attacks “retribution” for the soldier’s death.
Hamas has denied responsibility for the alleged attack on Israeli forces in Rafah, southern Gaza, and said in a statement that it remained committed to the ceasefire deal.
“Nothing is going to jeopardise” the ceasefire, the US president affirmed.
“You have to understand Hamas is a very small part of peace in the Middle East, and they have to behave,” he said.
“If they [Hamas] are good, they are going to be happy and if they are not good, they are going to be terminated; their lives will be terminated.”
In a statement on Wednesday, the Israeli military said it had reinstated the Gaza ceasefire after carrying out a series of strikes on dozens of “terror targets”, including “30 terrorists holding command positions”. It did not provide any evidence to back up these claims.
‘Indefinite, prolonged occupation’
Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud, reporting from Gaza City, said the renewed attacks had plunged Palestinians into a state of “panic”.
“As of this morning, we see that a brief hope for calm has turned into despair. The skies are filled with fighter jets, drones and reconnaissance aircraft,” he said on Wednesday.
“And the fear now is that what started last night is going to continue for days to come.”
Mouin Rabbani, a nonresident fellow at the Center for Conflict and Humanitarian Studies, told Al Jazeera that Israel had “never really fulfilled any of its commitments” under the deal, including withdrawing to the agreed line in Gaza or allowing the agreed-upon amount of aid to enter Gaza.
According to Rabbani, Israel is deliberately trying to undermine a ceasefire deal it was unwillingly dragged into by the US. He said it is evident “Israel does not feel it is simply able to unilaterally renounce” the ceasefire, “so what we’re seeing is a gradual intensification of the process of erosion”.
“The key issue here now is how will the United States … respond,” he added.
For Rob Geist Pinfold, a lecturer in international security at King’s College London, the ceasefire has been fragile “from day one” as both Israel and Hamas agreed the deal under significant duress from the US.
He told Al Jazeera that as Israel still controls some 50 percent of the Strip, “it’s understandable why to many Palestinians in Gaza this might not look like an actual ceasefire and definitely not a peace plan and more an indefinite, prolonged occupation with no end in sight”.
On the ground between Hamas and Israel, Pinfold said there is a “game of chicken where both sides are trying to test each other’s limits, test each other’s boundaries”.
“The fact that a soldier was killed in Rafah – we still don’t know by whom, we still don’t know if this was ordered by Hamas or this was somebody else,” he said. But what the incident did was “allow Israel to seize this opportunity to violate the ceasefire because this is what they wanted all along”.
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