Israel launched air attacks through the Gaza strip at dawn on Tuesday, killing at least 404 Palestinians, including women and children, according to hospital officials. The surprise bombardment destroyed a stop the fire since January and threatened to completely revive the 17 -month war.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the attacks after Hamas rejected the Israeli demands of changing the high fire agreement. The authorities said the operation was open and was expected to expand. The White House said he had been consulted and expressed his support for Israel's actions.
The Israeli army ordered people to evacuate Eastern Gaza, including much of the northern city of Beit Hanoun and other communities further south, and are directed towards the center of the territory, indicating that Israel could soon launch renewed land operations.
“Israel will act, from now on, against Hamas with an augmented military force,” said Netanyahu's office.
The attack during the Sacred Muslim month of Ramadan could resume a conflict that has already killed tens of thousands of Palestinians and has caused generalized destruction in Gaza. He also raised questions about the destiny of the approximately two dozen Israeli hostages held by Hamas who believes they are still alive.
A high Hamas official said that Netanyahu's decision returning to the conflict is equivalent to a “death sentence” for the remaining hostages. Izzat Al-Risheq accused Netanyahu of throwing strikes to try to save his government coalition of the extreme right and asked the mediators to “reveal facts” about who broke the truce. Hamas said at least four senior officials were killed in Tuesday's strikes.
There were no reports of any Hamas attacks several hours after the bombing, indicating that I was still waiting to restore the truce.
The attacks occurred when Netanyahu is under growing domestic pressure, with mass protests planned for their handling of the hostage crisis and their decision to fire the head of the Israel internal security agency. His last testimony in a long -term corruption trial was canceled after strikes.
The main group that represents the families of the captives accused the government of going back to the Alto El Fuego, saying that “he decided to renounce the hostages.”
“We are shocked, angry and terrified by the deliberate dismantling of the process to return our loved ones from the terrible captivity of Hamas,” said hostages and missing families in a statement.
The Palestinians inspect the damage to the Al-Tabi'in school in the center of Gaza Strip after an Israeli air attack, Tuesday, March 18, 2025.
AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi
Wounded stream in Gaza hospitals
A strike in a house in the southern city of Rafah killed 17 members of a family, including at least 12 women and children, according to the European hospital, which received the bodies. The dead included five children, their parents and another father and their three children.
In the southern city of Khan Younis, journalists Associated Press saw explosions and smoke columns. The ambulances brought injured people to the Nasser hospital, where patients lay on the floor, some shouting. A girl cried when her bloody arm was bandaged.
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Many Palestinians said they had waited for a return to the conflict when the conversations about the second phase of Alto El Fuego did not begin as scheduled in early February. Instead, Israel adopted an alternative proposal and cut all food, fuel and other shipping the 2 million Palestinians in the territory to try to press Hamas to accept it.
“Nobody wants to fight,” said Palestinian resident Nidal Alzaanin to the AP by telephone from Gaza City. “Everyone still suffers from the previous months,” he said.
The Gaza Ministry of Health said that at least 404 people were killed in the strikes and more than 560 had been injured. He reviewed his confirmed count after saying early Tuesday that 413 were dead and 660 injured. Rescuers were still looking for dead and injured while the attacks continued. It was one of the deadliest days of war.
The United States returns to Israel and blames Hamas
The White House sought to blame Hamas for the renewed fight. The National Security Council spokesman Brian Hughes said that the militant group “could have published Haras to extend the fire, but instead chose the refusal and war.”
An Israeli official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the development operation, said that Israel was attacking the military, leaders and infrastructure of Hamas and planned to expand the operation beyond air attacks. The officer accused Hamas of trying to rebuild and plan new attacks. The Militants of Hamas and the security forces quickly returned to the streets in recent weeks after the high fire entered into force.
Netanyahu's office said the Israeli leader made security consultations with senior officials. He did not provide more details.
The conversations in a second phase of the high fire had stagnated
The attacks occurred two months after the fire was reached to stop the war. For six weeks, Hamas released 25 Israeli hostages and the eight -old bodies in exchange for almost 2,000 Palestinian prisoners in a first phase of high fire.
But since the stop the fire ended two weeks ago, the parties have not been able to agree on a path to continue with a second phase destined to free the remaining 59 hostages, 35 of which it is believed that they are dead and end the conflict completely.
Hamas has demanded the end of the CONF; ICT and full withdrawal of Israeli troops in exchange for the release of the remaining hostages. Israel says that the conflict will not end until it destroys Hamas' government and military capabilities and releases all hostages, two objectives that could be incompatible.
Netanyahu's office said Tuesday that Hamas had repeatedly refused to free our hostages and rejected all the offers he received from the United States presidential envoy, Steve Witkoff, and the mediators. “
Israel wants Hamas to release half of the remaining hostages in exchange for a promise to negotiate a lasting truce. On the other hand, Hamas wants to follow the high fire agreement achieved by the two parties, which requires that the negotiations begin in the second most difficult phase of the high fire, in which the remaining hostages and the Israeli forces would be released and the Israeli forces would be removed from Gaza.
A return to the conflict would allow Netanyahu to avoid the difficult compensation required in the second phase of the agreement and the thorny question of who would govern Gaza. He would also underpin his coalition, which depends on the extreme right legislators who want to depopulate Gaza and rebuild the Jewish settlements there.
Gaza was already in a humanitarian crisis
The conflict broke out when the militants led by Hamas broke into southern Israel on October 7, 2023, killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking 251 hostages. The majority have been released in ceases of Ceeingires or other agreements, with Israeli forces rescuing only eight and recovering dozens of bodies.
Israel responded with a military offensive that killed more than 48,000 Palestinians, according to local health officials, and displaced approximately 90% of the population of Gaza. The Ministry of Health of the Territory does not differentiate between civilians and militants, but says that more than half of the dead have been women and children.
The high fire had brought some relief to Gaza and allowed hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians to resume what was left of their homes.
Netanyahu faces growing critications
The released hostages, some of which were demacred, have repeatedly implored the government that advances with the high fire to return all the remaining captives. Tens of thousands of Israelis have participated in mass manifestations that ask for a high fire and return of all hostages.
The mass demonstrations are planned on Tuesday and Wednesday after Netanyahu's announcement this week that he wants to say goodbye to the head of the internal security agency Shin Bet in Israel. Critics have criticized the measure as an attempt by Netanyahu to divert the guilt of his government's failures in the attack and management of the October 7 war.
Since the ceasefire began in Gaza in mid -January, the Israeli forces have killed dozens of Palestinians whom the military, approached their troops or entered unauthorized areas.
Even so, the agreement has remained dimly without an outbreak of broad violence. Egypt, Qatar and the United States have been trying to mediate in the next steps in Alto El Fuego.
Federman reported from Jerusalem and Magdy de El Cairo. Associated Press Mohammad JahjouH reporters in Khan Younis, Strip Gaza; Abdel Kareem Hana in the city of Gaza, Strip Gaza; Fatma Khaled in Cairo; and Tia Goldenberg in Tel Aviv, Israel, contributed.