Israel Orders Strikes On Gaza In Fresh Threat To Ceasefire

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered “forceful strikes” against Hamas in response to attacks on Israeli soldiers in Gaza, jeopardizing a US-brokered ceasefire that's held for just over two weeks.

The order to strike in the Palestinian territory came after security consultations, the Israeli leader's office said Tuesday in a post on X. Defense Minister Israel Katz later said Hamas will “pay a heavy price” for attacking Israeli troops and violating a promise to return the bodies of dead hostages.

The Hamas attack “is a crossing of a red line to which the IDF will respond with great force,” Katz said in a statement. An Israeli military official added that Hamas militants had attacked Israeli forces in Rafah, an area in southern Gaza controlled by Israel as part of the truce agreement.

Israeli strikes in the territory killed at least 20 people late Tuesday, the official Palestinian news agency WAFA said, citing medical sources. The Associated Press reported that the sound of tank fire and explosions could be heard in Gaza City and elsewhere in the territory. Israel notified the US in advance of the strikes, the AP said.

In a post on Telegram, Hamas denied it had anything to do with the shooting and reiterated its commitment to the ceasefire. The group had said earlier it would postpone the handing over of the remains of one dead hostage due to previous Israeli violations of the agreement.

Earlier, the Israel Defense Forces had called out Hamas for refusing to release the remains of hostages in violation of the agreement. Hamas, designated a terrorist organization by the US and European Union, rejected accusations that it's prolonging the search operations, accusing Israel of “hindering” efforts to locate the hostage bodies.

Israel's decision to step up strikes calls into question the ceasefire deal announced with great fanfare by US President Donald Trump in mid October. That deal paved the way for Hamas to return the last living hostages taken during the 2023 attacks that triggered the two-year conflict. The end to hostilities was accompanied by an increase in humanitarian aid flows and is meant to lead to talks on governance and reconstruction of the war-ravaged territory.

US Vice President JD Vance, speaking to reporters on Capitol Hill, said the deal remained intact.

“We know that Hamas or somebody else within Gaza attacked an IDF soldier,” Vance said. “We expect the Israelis are going to respond, but I think the President's peace is going to hold despite that.”

Israel's shekel touched session lows, falling as much as 0.4% against the dollar.

A ceasefire collapse would be a major blow for Trump, who has taken credit for the deal, boasted that it ended hundreds of years of conflict in the region, and repeatedly said it will hold up.

Since the ceasefire took hold, the Hamas-run health ministry said 94 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire. Several US officials including Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Trump envoy Steve Witkoff have traveled to the region in a bid to shore up the pact.

Those officials have said violations are to be expected in the painstaking move toward peace. In the region last week, Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner downplayed one round of fighting, saying “a lot of people are getting a little hysterical about different incursions.”