Israel hits targets in Gaza as cease-fire with Hamas collapses

[ad_1]

Smoke billows from buildings in Rafah following an Israeli air raid on the southern Gaza Strip city on Friday, as fighting resumed shortly after the a week-long truce between Israel and Hamas fell apart.

Said Khatib/AFP via Getty Images

hide caption

toggle caption

Said Khatib/AFP via Getty Images

TEL AVIV, Israel — Israel’s warplanes began pounding targets in Gaza early Friday, shortly after it announced the collapse of a twice-renewed cease-fire deal that had allowed the release of more than 100 hostages seized by Hamas militants.

In its statement, Israel’s military said Hamas “violated the operational pause…and fired toward Israeli territory,” adding that Israel had “resumed combat” against Hamas, which launched a surprise attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing around 1,200 people and seizing some 240 hostages, Israel says. The military said Israeli fighter jets had begun “striking Hamas terror targets in the Gaza Strip.”

The scope of the renewed Israeli airstrikes was not immediately clear, but smoke was seen rising from buildings in Rafah, near the Egyptian border.

The office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu added that Hamas “did not live up to its duty to release all the kidnapped women today, and launched rockets at the citizens of Israel.”

“With the return to fighting we will emphasize: the Israeli government is committed to achieving the goals of the war — to release our hostages, eliminate Hamas and ensure that Gaza will never again pose a threat to the residents of Israel.”

Members of Hamas’ political bureau, issued a statement saying: “What Israel did not achieve during the fifty days before the truce, it will not achieve by continuing its aggression after the truce.”

A spokesman for the health ministry in Hamas-controlled Gaza said 14 people had died and dozens were wounded in the renewed Israeli bombardment. The spokesman, Dr. Ashraf Al-Qudra, said the temporary truce “did not help the health system.”

“We need to ensure the flow of medical supplies and fuel to all hospitals in the Gaza Strip,” he said.

The news on Friday morning came hours after another hostages-for-prisoners exchange between the two sides, and just as U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was leaving Israel after high-level meetings, including with Netanyahu. Blinken had pressed Israel to further extend the temporary truce.

Speaking on Thursday, Netanyahu said: “We swore, and I swore, to eliminate Hamas. Nothing will stop us.”

During the week of exchanges, Hamas and other militants in Gaza released more than 100 hostages, most of them Israelis, in return for 240 Palestinians freed from prisons in Israel.

The truce also allowed desperately needed humanitarian aid to reach Gaza, whose 2.2 million people had been on the receiving end of an intense Israeli air and ground campaign that has killed at least 13,300 people, according to Gaza’s health ministry.

The original four-day cease-fire deal that began a week ago was extended another three days to allow for the exchange of more captives. Israel had agreed to prolong the truce if Hamas freed an additional ten hostages per day in exchange for 30 Palestinians. But on Thursday, in the final exchange under the extension, the Islamist militant group released only eight captives.