Gaza’s civil defence agency told AFP Wednesday dozens of Israeli strikes overnight killed at least 50 people in the Palestinian territory, hours after US President Donald Trump said “nothing” would jeopardise the ceasefire agreement he helped broker.
The agency said 22 children were among those killed, as well as women and elderly, and that around 200 people were wounded.
Civil defence spokesman Mahmoud Bassal described the situation in Gaza as “catastrophic and terrifying”, calling the strikes “a clear and flagrant violation of the ceasefire agreement”.
“The Israeli strikes targeted tents for displaced people, homes, and the vicinity of a hospital in the Strip,” he told AFP.
Israel began carrying out air strikes on Tuesday after accusing Hamas of attacking Israeli troops in Gaza and violating the truce.
While Israel did not say where its troops were attacked, Hamas has said its fighter had “no connection to the shooting incident in Rafah” and reaffirmed its commitment to the US-brokered ceasefire.
The Israeli army said Wednesday one of its soldiers — 37-year-old Yona Efraim Feldbaum — was killed “during combat in the southern Gaza Strip” a day earlier, and his family had been informed.
Trump defended Israel’s actions on Wednesday, saying it “should hit back”, but added that “nothing’s going to jeopardise” the truce.
“They killed an Israeli soldier. So the Israelis hit back. And they should hit back,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One during his tour of Asia.
US Vice President JD Vance earlier said the ceasefire was holding despite the “skirmishes”.
– Escalations –
The territory’s main Al-Shifa hospital said one of the strikes hit its backyard.
Al-Awda Hospital said it had received several bodies, including those of four children, killed in the bombing of Gaza’s central Nuseirat refugee camp.
Hamas announced it would delay handing over the body of another hostage, due on Tuesday, saying Israeli “escalation will hinder the search, excavation, and recovery of the bodies”.
Hamas militants had taken 251 people hostage during the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel that triggered the war.
A row over the last remaining bodies of deceased hostages has threatened to derail the ceasefire agreement.
Israel accuses Hamas of reneging by not returning them, but the Palestinian group says it will take time to locate the remains buried in Gaza’s war-ravaged ruins.
Hamas later said on Telegram it had found the bodies of two hostages on Tuesday, but did not specify when it would hand them over.
– ‘Act decisively’ –
Hamas came under mounting pressure on Monday after it returned the partial remains of a previously recovered captive, which Israel said was a breach of the truce.
Hamas had said the remains were the 16th of 28 hostage bodies it had agreed to return under the ceasefire deal, which came into effect on October 10.
But Israeli forensic examination determined Hamas had in fact handed over partial remains of a hostage whose body had already been brought back to Israel around two years ago, according to Netanyahu’s office.
Israeli government spokeswoman Shosh Bedrosian accused Hamas of staging the discovery of the remains.
“Hamas dug a hole in the ground yesterday, placed the partial remains… inside of it, covered it back up with dirt, and handed it over to the Red Cross,” she told journalists.
The Hostages and Missing Families Forum urged the government to “act decisively against these violations” and accused Hamas of knowing the location of the missing hostages.
Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem rejected claims the group knows where the remaining bodies are, arguing that Israel’s bombardment during the two-year war had left locations unrecognisable.
– ‘We want to rest’ –
“The movement (Hamas) is determined to hand over the bodies of the Israeli captives as soon as possible once they are located,” he told AFP.
The Palestinian militant group has already returned all 20 living hostages as agreed in the ceasefire deal.
Hamas’s October 2023 attack resulted in the deaths of 1,221 people on the Israeli side, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Israel’s subsequent assault on Gaza killed at least 68,531 people, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry that the UN considers reliable.
Despite the ceasefire, the toll has continued to climb as more bodies are found under the rubble.
On the ground in Gaza, 60-year-old Abdul-Hayy al-Hajj Ahmed told AFP he was afraid the war would start again.
“Now they accuse Hamas of stalling, and that is a pretext for renewed escalation and war,” he said.
“We want to rest. I believe the war will come back.”
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© Agence France-Presse
