Israel unleashes bloody Gaza bombardment, killing hundreds and breaking truce
Hospitals are overwhelmed with the dead and wounded as Israeli jets bomb homes and schools across the enclave
Israel killed more than 300 Palestinians in one of the bloodiest bombardments of the Gaza Strip early Tuesday, unilaterally ending its ceasefire with Hamas.
Air strikes began hitting all five Gaza municipalities from north to south at around 3 AM local time (12 AM GMT). Footage broadcast by Al Jazeera showed children and babies among those killed and wounded.
At least 254 people were killed and 440 wounded, according to a preliminary death toll by the Palestinian health ministry. Health sources told Al Jazeera there are more than 350 killed.
“The death toll [is] steadily rising since the beginning of the onslaught overnight, which coincided with the 18th day of the holy month of Ramadan,” said the health ministry.
Yosri al-Ghar, a survivor of the overnight bombardment, said the air strikes killed his pregnant sister, her husband, their three children. The fourth child is in serious condition.
He described the area as once being considered safe, far from the border, where life had been normal.
“The strike was direct, with no warnings,” al-Ghar told Middle East Eye outside the war-battered Nasser hospital in Khan Younis.
“It was a clear targeting of civilians, including children. The attack was absolutely barbaric.”
He expressed deep frustration over the lack of global response.
“There’s no world, no Arab world, or even Islamic world, speaking out. If a kitten were killed, the world would have protested, but instead, the silence is deafening.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he has instructed the military to take “strong action” against Hamas in Gaza, accusing the group of refusing to release captives and rejecting all ceasefire proposals.
“Israel will, from now on, act against Hamas with increasing military strength,” the prime minister’s office said in a statement.
White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt told Fox News that US President Donald Trump’s administration was consulted by Israel prior to carrying out the strikes.
“The Trump administration and the White House were consulted by the Israelis on their attacks on Gaza tonight and as President Trump has made clear to Hamas, the Houthis, Iran – all those who seek to terrorise not just Israel but the United States of America will see a price to pay,” Leavitt said.
“All hell will break loose and all of the terrorists in the Middle East – the Houthis, Hezbollah, Hamas, Iranian-backed terror proxies and Iran themselves – should take President Trump very seriously when he says he is not afraid to stand for law-abiding people.”
The Israeli military said it is prepared to continue attacks on Gaza for as long as needed and would expand the campaign beyond air strikes.
It later issued displacement orders from vast areas of the Gaza Strip, a move that often precedes brutal ground attacks.
The military described the attacks as having targeted Hamas commanders and infrastructure, but footage and local reports indicate that scores of civilians had been killed and wounded.
Reacting to the air strikes, Hamas said in a statement that Israel had resumed its “genocidal war against defenceless civilians in the Gaza Strip”.
“Netanyahu and his extremist government have decided to overturn the ceasefire agreement, exposing the [Israeli] prisoners in Gaza to an unknown fate,” Hamas said on Tuesday morning.
“We demand that the mediators hold Netanyahu and the Zionist occupation fully responsible for violating and overturning the agreement.”
It called on the Arab League and Organisation of Islamic Cooperation to “assume their historical responsibility in supporting the steadfastness and valiant resistance of our Palestinian people, and in breaking the unjust siege imposed on the Gaza Strip”.
It also called on the UN to “convene urgently to adopt a resolution obligating the occupation to halt its aggression and abide by Resolution 2735, which calls for an end to the aggression and withdrawal from the entire Gaza Strip”.
Fragile ceasefire
The fragile ceasefire between Israel Hamas, which came into effect on 19 January, was planned to include three phases.
The first phase, which ended at the beginning of March, resulted in the release of 33 Israeli and five Thai captives by Hamas in exchange for the release of some 2,000 Palestinian captives held in Israeli prisons.
Israel, backed by the US, has sought an extension of phase I of the deal while Hamas has said the ceasefire should move to phase II.
The broad outline of the second phase, the details of which have not yet been agreed, is for all Israeli captives to be released in return for a total withdrawal from Gaza.
Israeli officials have long maintained that their forces will not withdraw from the enclave unless Hamas’s military and governance capabilities are completely removed.
A plan for the governance of post-war Gaza would have been discussed in the second and third phases.
The third phase was expected to involve the return of the bodies of Israeli captives still held in Gaza and the announcement of a three to five-year reconstruction plan for the enclave overseen by international actors.
Now, 59 Israeli captives remain in Gaza. Israel’s Channel 12, citing an Israeli official, reported on 3 March that the government had set a deadline 10 days from then for Hamas to release the remaining captives in Gaza before a return to fighting.
The Arab League on 4 March endorsed a $53bn five-year plan for Gaza reconstruction, proposed by Egypt, which seeks to redevelop the enclave without displacing its population.
The Arab plan came as a counter-proposal for Trump’s declaration in February that he plans to take over the enclave and turn it into a tourism hub, while displacing its population to other countries, a suggestion decried by the international community as tantamount to ethnic cleansing.
The Arab plan has been backed by the UK, France, Italy and Germany.
Israel blocked all aid entering Gaza following the end of phase I of the agreement on 2 March, and then announced that it cut off electricity supplies to the enclave in measures denounced by UN experts as a form of weaponisation of starvation, a war crime under international law.
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Source: TLB