Israel, Hamas Both Say Ceasefire to Continue After Round of Attacks

Israel and Hamas both said that the ceasefire in Gaza will resume, despite an exchange of attacks that began on Tuesday when Hamas terrorists fired on Israeli soldiers, killing one, and staged a fake return of remains.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) announced Wednesday that a reserve soldier had been killed in the Hamas attack — an ambush from a tunnel that violated the terms of President Donald Trump’s 20-point ceasefire.

In addition, Hamas attempted to fool the Red Cross and Israel into thinking it had handed over the remains of one of the 13 remaining dead Israeli hostages, when in fact it delivered partial remains of an Israeli whose body had been partially recovered two years ago. Hamas staged a false excavation in an attempt to convince the Red Cross that the find was real, leading to a rare rebuke by the Red Cross against the terrorist group.

Overnight, the IDF had carried out what it said were attacks on “over 30 terrorists holding command positions within the terrorist organizations operating in the Gaza Strip.” But Hamas told mediators that it wanted the ceasefire to hold, and Israel declared that the ceasefire had resumed at 10 a.m. on Wednesday.

Israel still demands that Hamas comply with the terms of the deal, and says that Hamas knows the locations of most of the bodies of the hostages, but is delaying their handover in an attempt to maintain leverage.

On Tuesday, Vice President JD Vance had said that he was certain the ceasefire would hold. President Donald Trump, on a visit to East Asia, added that he expected Israel to “hit back” if attacked by Hamas terrorists.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent e-book, “The Zionist Conspiracy (and how to join it),” now available on Audible. He is also the author of the e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.