Israel shatters truce, kills 413 Gazans
Israeli airstrikes yesterday killed more than 400 people in Gaza, shattering a fragile ceasefire and drawing global condemnation.
However, the United States yesterday said that Hamas bore full blame for Israel's massive deadly airstrikes, saying the militants could have accepted a ceasefire extension proposal by US special envoy Steve Witkoff.
For all latest news, follow The Daily Star's Google News channel. Hamas, the Palestinian group that rules Gaza, said the US "bears full responsibility for the massacres" in Gaza after the White House confirmed Israel had consulted the Trump administration before it carried out the overnight airstrikes.
The strikes, by far the deadliest since a truce took effect in January, also injured more than 550 more people, according to the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza.
War monitors said the airstrikes were the deadliest since the first months of the conflict which started in October 2023. The breach of the ceasefire, which broadly held since January, offered respite from war for the 2.3 million inhabitants of Gaza, where most buildings have been reduced to rubble.
"This level of casualties is reminiscent of the first one or two months of the war, and comes when theoretically a ceasefire is still in place," Michael Spagat, Professor of Economics at Royal Holloway College, University of London and Chair of Every Casualty Counts, which monitors deaths from armed conflict around the world.
Israel's military also ordered an evacuation of parts of eastern Gaza, hours after launching the strikes. The evacuation orders, which cover the northern town of Beit Hanoun and other communities further south, suggest that Israeli troops may launch renewed ground operations within hours.
Families in Beit Hanoun, in the northern Gaza Strip, and eastern areas of Khan Younis in the south fled their homes, some on foot, others in cars or rickshaws, carrying some of their belongings after the Israeli military issued evacuation orders warning the areas were "dangerous combat zones".
Israel vowed to continue fighting until all the hostages seized by Palestinian militants were returned, while Hamas, which has not responded militarily so far, accused it of attempting to force it to "surrender".
Netanyahu warned Hamas this month of consequences it "cannot imagine" if it did not free the hostages still in Gaza, and Israeli media has reported on a scheme aimed at ramping up pressure on Hamas dubbed the "Hell Plan".
"Without the release of our hostages, Israel has no alternative but to resume military operations," Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said.
The White House said Israel consulted US President Donald Trump's administration before launching the strikes, while Israel said the return to fighting was "fully coordinated" with Washington.
The United Nations and countries around the world condemned the strikes, while the families of Israeli hostages pleaded with Netanyahu to halt the violence.
Netanyahu's office said the operation was ordered after "Hamas's repeated refusal to release hostages, as well as its rejection of all of the proposals it has received from Witkoff and from the mediators".
"Israel will, from now on, act against Hamas with increasing military strength," the statement said.
US National Security Council spokesman Brian Hughes blamed Hamas, saying it "could have released hostages to extend the ceasefire but instead chose refusal and war".
Hamas said Israel had "decided to overturn the ceasefire agreement", calling it "a decision to sacrifice the occupation's prisoners and impose a death sentence on them".
Hamas also accused Israel of attacking "defenceless civilians" and urged mediators to hold the Netanyahu administration "fully responsible" for "violating and overturning" the ceasefire.
Hamas said the head of its government in Gaza, Essam al-Dalis, was among several officials killed.
In the southern Gaza Strip, AFP footage showed people rushing stretchers with wounded people, including young children, to hospital. Bodies covered with white sheets were also taken to the hospital's mortuary.
Mohammed Jarghoun, 36, was sleeping in a tent near his destroyed house in Khan Yunis when he was awakened by huge blasts.
"I thought they were dreams and nightmares, but I saw a fire in my relatives' house. More than 20 martyrs and wounded, most of them children and women."
Ramez al-Amarin, 25, described carrying children to a hospital southeast of Gaza City.
"They unleashed the fire of hell again on Gaza," he said of Israel.
The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said the bodies of 413 people had been received by Gaza hospitals, adding "a number of victims are still under the rubble".
A spokesman for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said at a briefing in Geneva "that many medical facilities are literally overwhelmed across Gaza".
UN chief Antonio Guterres was "shocked" by the renewed strikes, a spokesperson said, while UN rights chief Volker Turk said he was "horrified".
Meanwhile, Tom Fletcher, head of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, yesterday said the Israeli strikes have plunged residents of Gaza into "abject fear" once again.
"Overnight our worst fears materialized. Airstrikes resumed across the entire Gaza Strip," he told the UN Security Council in a video meeting.
The council meeting was called -- prior to the air strikes -- by several member states to discuss the humanitarian situation as Israel has blocked aid into Gaza Strip since March 2.
Britain and France both called for the renewed hostilities to end.
Hamas backer Iran denounced the wave of attacks as a "continuation of the genocide and ethnic cleansing" in the Palestinian territories.
Russia and China warned against an escalation, while Egypt, Qatar, Jordan and Turkey condemned the violence.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said in a statement that the strikes were part of "deliberate efforts to make the Gaza Strip uninhabitable and force the Palestinians into displacement".
Trump has floated a proposal to move Palestinians out of Gaza, suggesting that Egypt or Jordan could take them in.
Both countries have rejected the notion, but some right-wing politicians in Israel have embraced it.
Netanyahu's Likud movement yesterday said that the far-right Otzma Yehudit party would rejoin the government, having withdrawn in January in protest of the truce.
Brokered by Qatar, Egypt and the United States, the ceasefire took effect on January 19, largely halting the war triggered by Hamas's October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.
That first phase of the deal ended in early March, and the two sides have been unable to agree on the next steps.
During the first phase, Hamas released 33 hostages, including eight deceased, in exchange for Israel freeing around 1,800 Palestinian detainees.
Hamas has consistently demanded negotiations for the second phase, which should lead to a lasting ceasefire. Israel had sought to extend the first phase until mid-April, cutting off aid and electricity to Gaza over the deadlock.
Critics of Netanyahu said the Israeli PM, in the first place, had any intention of moving to the second phase of the ceasefire, which would have meant Israeli forces withdrawing from Gaza, in effect leaving Hamas as its de facto ruler.
Since October 7, 2023, the Israeli offensive in Gaza has killed at least 48,577 people, also mostly civilians, according to figures from the two sides.
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