Netanyahu said to order expansion of IDF control over Gaza

IDF strikes said to kill at least 30 in Gaza, as Israel vows Hamas will ‘pay’ for violations

Strikes come after terror operatives fire at soldiers in Rafah, fake ‘unearthing’ hostage remains; Hamas nixes planned release of deceased captive Tuesday night

A wave of Israeli airstrikes was reported Tuesday evening in Gaza City after Israeli officials vowed to respond to an attack on troops in south Gaza and Hamas’s failure to return the bodies of hostages still held in the Strip.

There was no immediate comment from the Israel Defense Forces on the strikes, reported by Palestinian media, which came hours after Israeli troops stationed in southern Gaza’s Rafah came under fire by terror operatives.

Troops returned fire at the attackers, and Palestinian media also reported Israeli artillery shelling in the Rafah area. Hamas later denied involvement in the shooting.

After the incident, Gaza’s Hamas-run civil defense agency said at least 30 people were killed and dozens wounded in the Israeli strikes.

“At least 30 killed and dozens of wounded as a result of the Israeli strikes on the Gaza Strip, and our crews are still working to recover the dead and wounded from under the rubble,” Mahmud Basal, spokesman for the agency, tells AFP.

Associated Press reporters and witnesses heard tank fire and saw explosions in various parts of Gaza, including in Gaza City and Deir al-Balah. According to Palestinian reports, one of the strikes targeted an area near Gaza’s largest hospital, Shifa, with no casualties reported.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu instructed the IDF to “carry out immediate and powerful strikes in Gaza,” his office said, after he called a meeting on Israel’s response to repeated violations of the Gaza ceasefire.

Defense Minister Israel Katz also threatened the terror group, saying Hamas will pay a “heavy price” for attacking soldiers.

“The attack on IDF soldiers in Gaza today by the Hamas terror organization crosses a glaring red line to which the IDF will respond with great force,” Katz said in a statement. “Hamas will pay many times over for attacking the soldiers and for violating the agreement to return the fallen hostages.”

IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir said Israel “will not remain silent” over Hamas’s violations of the ceasefire agreement in the Strip.

“Hamas committed to returning the remaining deceased hostages, but it is violating its commitment. We saw that last night as well. We know well the nature of this organization, an organization built on terror, on deception and on treachery,” Zamir said during a ceremony for outstanding civilian employees of the IDF.

“We will not remain silent about this. We will continue to act to return all our hostages for burial. This is our moral and ethical duty,” he said. “If Hamas does not fulfill its commitments, it will bear responsibility and will pay a heavy price. Many challenges still await us; the war is not yet over.”

Hamas announced on Tuesday night that it had no connection to the shooting earlier in Rafah and that it was committed to the ceasefire.

The terror group said in a statement that “the criminal assault by the occupation army in several areas of Gaza constitutes a serious violation of the ceasefire agreement… the attack is a continuation of a series of violations in recent days.”

Hamas demanded that the mediators pressure Israel on the matter and stop the “dangerous violations.”

Israel has accused Hamas of multiple violations of the deal reached earlier this month, and has charged that the terror group knows the location of the vast majority, or even all, of the remaining bodies of hostages, and is purposely stalling and staging fake discoveries of bodies.

In addition to not returning the bodies of any of the 13 dead hostages still held in the Gaza Strip, Hamas staged a fake “discovery” of Ofir Tzarfati’s remains in eastern Gaza City in front of the Red Cross, before handing them over on Monday night.

Last week, two IDF soldiers were killed in an attack in the Rafah area. The military blamed Hamas for the attack, though the terror group said it had no responsibility for its operatives in IDF-held areas of Gaza.

Hamas’s military wing announced on Tuesday it was postponing the return of a hostage’s body that had been scheduled for 8 p.m. In a statement, the terror group said the move was in response to “violations of the ceasefire agreement by the occupation.”

The Saudi Al-Hadath channel reported that Hamas recovered what it said was another hostage’s body from a tunnel in Khan Younis, in addition to one it claimed to have recovered earlier, and was going to release on Tuesday night.

Netanyahu orders IDF to expand control in Gaza — report

In response to the repeated Hamas violations of the deal, Netanyahu has decided to expand the territory under IDF control in the Gaza Strip, Hebrew media reported.

The Prime Minister’s Office declined to comment on the reports.

According to the Kan public broadcaster, Netanyahu was speaking with senior US officials to coordinate the move.

Additionally, Channel 12 news reported that after Hamas was allowed by the IDF to enter areas under its control to search for hostages’ bodies, it instead recovered weapons.

The war in Gaza erupted when Hamas-led terrorists rampaged through southern Israel on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking 251 hostages.

The 20 remaining living hostages in Gaza were released earlier this month after 738 days in captivity, as part of phase one of US President Donald Trump’s plan to end the war. The remains of 13 deceased hostages, including those of a soldier killed fighting in the 2014 Gaza war, are still in the Strip.

Under the agreement, Israel released 250 life-sentence prisoners, as well as some 1,700 Gazans detained following the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, attack that launched the war — some to the West Bank, some to Gaza, and some to other countries.

Agencies contributed to this report.