Israel launched strikes on Gaza after Hamas violated terms of the recently agreed-upon cease-fire deal by firing a rocket-propelled grenade into southern Israel and allegedly shooting at Israeli soldiers.
The IDF hit Hamas infrastructure in Gaza City on Tuesday in what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised would be a “forceful” response to Hamas’s cease-fire violations. The cease-fire deal, which President Donald Trump brokered, went into effect earlier this month.
“Today’s attack on IDF soldiers in Gaza by the terrorist organization Hamas is a crossing of a glaring red line to which the IDF will respond with great force,” Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said. “Hamas will pay dearly, with interest, for attacking the soldiers and for violating the agreement on the return of the deceased hostages.”
Strikes come as Israel accuses Hamas of multiple cease-fire violations.
Terrorists failed to return the dead bodies of Israeli hostages to Israel within 72 hours of the agreement being accepted, claiming that they don’t know where all the bodies are. Hamas has also fired at IDF soldiers and, last weekend, terrorists shot at and killed two Israeli soldiers in Rafah, to which Israel responded with air strikes, according to the prime minister’s office.
Trump demanded last week that Hamas release the bodies or face consequences.
“Numerous of our NOW GREAT ALLIES in the Middle East, and areas surrounding the Middle East, have explicitly and strongly, with great enthusiasm, informed me that they would welcome the opportunity, at my request, to go into GAZA with a heavy force and ‘straighten our Hamas’ if Hamas continues to act badly, in violation of their agreement with us,” he said in a Truth Social post. “I told these countries, and Israel, ‘NOT YET!’ There is still hope that Hamas will do what is right. If they do not, an end to Hamas will be FAST, FURIOUS, & BRUTAL!”
Although Tuesday’s strikes are an expansion of Israel’s previous air strikes, Vice President JD Vance rejected the notion that the cease-fire deal between Israel and Hamas was irreparable.
“The ceasefire is holding. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t going to be little skirmishes here and there,” Vance told reporters on Tuesday. “We know that Hamas or somebody else within Gaza attacked an [IDF] soldier. We expect the Israelis are going to respond, but I think Trump’s peace is going to hold despite that.”
Israel also has the right to strike given an “imminent threat,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio confirmed.
Hamas officials have told intermediaries that they are “unequivocally committed” to finding the hostages’ bodies. The group claims that it has returned all the hostage bodies it can locate and access.
Israel’s Hostages and Missing Families forum, however, said this week that “Hamas knows the location of all the hostages and continues to act with contempt, deceiving mediators and the international community while desecrating the dignity of our loved ones.”
On Monday, Hamas returned to Israel a coffin containing additional remains of hostage Ofir Tzarfati, whose body was already returned to Israel in 2023. Tzarfati’s remains have been discovered and returned to Israel three times now.
“This is the third time we have been forced to open Ofir’s grave and rebury our son,” his family said. “The circle supposedly ‘closed’ back in December 2023, but it never truly closes. Since then, we have lived with a wound that constantly reopens, between memory and longing, between bereavement and mission.”