Gaza City, Palestinian Territories — Israel said it was renewing its enforcement of the Gaza ceasefire Wednesday, after launching a wave of strikes on Hamas targets in the worst night of bombing since a US-brokered truce went into effect.
Gaza’s civil defense agency said more than 100 people were killed, including many children, but both US President Donald Trump and regional mediator Qatar said they expected the ceasefire to hold.
The Israeli military launched the wave of bombing after one of its soldiers was killed in Gaza on Tuesday, but by mid-morning on Wednesday it said it had begun “renewed enforcement of the ceasefire” — while reserving the right to defend its troops.
The Hamas-run territory’s civil defense agency said at least 35 children were among the more than 100 killed, a toll confirmed by an AFP tally of medical sources at five hospitals in Gaza.
“We had just started to breathe again, trying to rebuild our lives, when the bombardment came back,” said 31-year-old Khadija al-Husni, a displaced mother living with her children under canvas at a school in Al-Shati refugee camp.
“It’s a crime. Either there is a truce or a war — it can’t be both. The children couldn’t sleep; they thought the war was over.”
‘We’re exhausted’
United Nations rights chief Volker Turk said the report of so many dead was appalling and urged all side not to let peace “slip from our grasp”, echoing calls from Britain, Germany and the European Union for the parties to recommit to the ceasefire.
In the central city of Deir el-Balah, in a tent near Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, 40-year-old Jalal Abbas was close to despair and accused the Israelis of using false pretexts to resume their campaign.
“The problem is that Trump gives them cover to kill civilians because they mislead him with false information,” he told AFP.
“We want an end to the war and the escalation. We’re exhausted and on the verge of collapse.”
The Israeli military said that its strikes had targeted 30 senior militants, with Defence Minister Israel Katz maintaining “dozens of Hamas commanders were neutralized”.
Israel said it launched the wave of strikes after reservist Master Sergeant Yona Efraim Feldbaum, 37, was killed in Rafah when his engineering vehicle was hit by enemy fire.
“A few minutes later, several anti-tank missiles were fired at another armored vehicle belonging to the troops in the area,” a military official said.
Hostage handover delayed
Hamas said its fighters had “no connection to the shooting incident in Rafah” and reaffirmed its commitment to the US-backed ceasefire.
It also delayed handing over what it said was the remains of a deceased hostage, because the “escalation will hinder the search, excavation and recovery of the bodies”.
Hamas took 251 people hostage during Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel that triggered the war. After the start of this month’s ceasefire it returned the 20 surviving captives still in its custody and began the process of returning 28 bodies of deceased hostages.
But a row over the process of returning the last remains has threatened to derail the ceasefire plan — agreed between Israel and Hamas and backed by Trump’s US administration and regional mediators Egypt, Turkey and Qatar.
Israel accuses Hamas of reneging on the deal by not returning them fast enough, but the Palestinian group says it will take time to locate remains buried in Gaza’s ruins.
‘Fake recovery’
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 International Committee of the Red Cross, responding to a video in circulation that appeared to show the deception, called it “unacceptable that a fake recovery was staged”.
Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem has rejected claims the group knows where the remaining bodies are, arguing that Israel’s bombardment has left locations unrecognizable.
Israel’s assault on Gaza has killed at least 68,643 people, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry that the UN considers reliable.
