Israel resumed bombing of Gaza on Tuesday. Shortly before, the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the army to carry out “forceful attacks” and “immediately” on the Strip, in response to an attack “by members of Hamas” against Israeli troops near Rafah, in the south of the Palestinian enclave.
The statement from Netanyahu’s office was released after “security consultations” with his Cabinet, which Netanyahu had convened hours before, after Hamas handed over the remains of an Israeli who did not correspond to any of the 13 hostage bodies yet to be located in the enclave.
The new Israeli offensive on the Strip responds to the exchange of fire in Rafah, where Israeli troops were attacked this Tuesday. The diary The Times of Israel He assures that soldiers of the Jewish State stationed in that southern municipality of the enclave have been assaulted by “terrorist agents”, without linking the action to the Palestinian militia Hamas, and adds that Israeli troops have responded by opening fire on the attackers.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz has stated that “Hamas will pay a high price for attacking Israeli Defense Forces soldiers in Gaza” and for “violating the agreement for the repatriation of dead hostages.” In a statement released by his ministry, Katz refers to “artillery and sniper fire” against his soldiers by “Hamas members” in Rafah. The Palestinian militia, however, has denied having any connection with the attack against Israeli forces, and has assured in a statement that it remains committed to the ceasefire.
Although the incident in question occurred in the south of the Strip, testimonies collected by different news agencies in Gaza City – the largest urban center of the enclave – have reported shortly after the resumption of aerial bombardments in the area, while images broadcast by the Qatari media outlet Al Jazeera show columns of smoke rising over the buildings. The Civil Defense of the Strip has reported two fatalities and four injuries in the south of the Gazan capital. Attacks are also reported in other parts of the north and center of the Strip.
The assault on Rafah and Netanyahu’s rapid response are reminiscent of the incidents that on October 19 subjected Gaza to a single-day Israeli lightning offensive, after members of Hamas acting on their own—according to the White House version—launched a surprise attack against the Israeli army, causing the death of two Israeli soldiers.
Those attacks left more than thirty fatalities in the enclave, according to the Palestinian news agency Wafa, in an operation in which Israel dropped 153 tons of bombs, as Netanyahu has recalled in almost every public intervention since then, in an attempt to highlight the cost of breaking the truce in the enclave, which came into force on October 10.
The atmosphere was already heated before the outbreak of violence this Tuesday in Rafah. Different Israeli media outlets have released aerial images taken on Monday by an Israeli drone in which they claim that Hamas members can be seen hiding the remains of Ofir Tzarfati underground – an Israeli whose body troops rescued at the end of 2023 – before communicating their discovery to Red Cross teams. “The images show how the terrorist organization tries to create the false impression that it is making efforts to find the bodies,” denounced the Israeli army, which maintains that Hamas is lying when it refers to the difficulty of finding the bodies.
Later, when these remains were examined in Israel and it was found that they did not correspond to any of the 13 hostage bodies that Hamas has yet to find and hand over under the ceasefire agreement – it has already returned the remains of another 15 – Netanyahu called “security consultations” with his Cabinet, which led to the order to resume the full-scale offensive.
According to the public broadcaster Kan, Netanyahu would be considering the possibility of expanding Israeli control in the Strip, beyond the half that the current first phase of the truce grants him, in response to what he interprets as violations by Hamas. Similarly, the militia, which had announced that it would hand over a new body on Tuesday night – which the Saudi media Al Hadath indicates that it has been found in Nuseirat, in the center of the Strip—, has warned in a statement that “any Zionist escalation (in relation to Israel) will hinder the search” for bodies, and has postponed the delivery that was scheduled this Tuesday due to Israeli “violations” of the ceasefire in the Strip.
Announcement without waiting for Trump
Citing Israeli and US officials on condition of anonymity, the media outlet Axios He assures that Israel has shown the United States this Tuesday the video in which Hamas is supposedly seen faking the discovery of the body of a hostage, but that, however, the Trump Administration has not considered it a violation of the truce. According to the same information, Netanyahu failed in his attempt to contact Trump—on tour in Asia—during his Cabinet meeting. Axios points out that both leaders did not speak before Netanyahu announced the resumption of the offensive.
Israel has resumed attacks on Gaza hours after US Secretary of State Marco Rubio recognized on Monday night “Israel’s right to self-defense” after Israeli troops shot on Saturday someone they described as a member of the Islamic Jihad who was plotting an attack against the occupying forces.
Rubio’s statement represents a change in position. Last Thursday, during the succession of visits to Israel that the main faces of the White House carried out in an attempt to safeguard the truce in Gaza, the secretary suggested from the Civil-Military Coordination Center – a base in Israel from where Washington and Jerusalem monitor the application of the truce – that the Israeli army lacked freedom of action to act in Gaza, unlike what is happening in Lebanon, where there is a truce in force but Washington tolerates the constant Israeli attacks.
Trump warned Hamas last Saturday on his own social network, Truth, that it had to start returning the hostages’ bodies “quickly” or they would face consequences “within 48 hours.”
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