Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the Israeli military to carry out “forceful” strikes in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, threatening the already fragile ceasefire between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas.
“Following security consultations, Prime Minister Netanyahu has directed the military to immediately carry out forceful strikes in the Gaza Strip,” Netanyahu’s office said in a post on the social platform X.
The order from the Israeli leader comes as Hamas, which is designated as a foreign terrorist organization by the U.S. government, gave back body parts of an Israeli hostage whose remains Israel said were returned early on in the conflict.
Netanyahu’s office called it a “clear violation” of the U.S.-brokered ceasefire agreement, which went into effect earlier in October and temporarily paused the conflict between Israel and Hamas.
Hamas shot at Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers in the city of Rafah on Tuesday, east of the yellow line that demarcates Israeli control, an Israeli military official, speaking on condition anonymity, told The Hill on Tuesday.
“This comes after Hamas has also shown their true face and the fact that they are pretending to not know where the remaining hostages are,” the official said.
Under the ceasefire deal brokered by President Trump, Hamas is required to return all remains of Israeli hostages from Gaza as soon as possible. There are 13 bodies of hostages remaining in the war-torn enclave.
Hamas has argued that it will be difficult to recover the remains of the hostages in light of the leveling of Gaza during the two-year conflict. Israel has accused the Palestinian militant group of delaying the return of the remains on purpose.
Earlier this month, the IDF said that two of its soldiers were killed and three were injured in Rafah by Palestinian militants.
President Trump expressed confidence over the weekend that the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas will hold.
“Well, if it doesn’t hold, that would be Hamas,” Trump told reporters on Saturday aboard Air Force One. “Hamas will be not hard to take care of very quickly. I hope it holds for Hamas too because they gave us their word on something, so I think it’s going to hold and if it doesn’t then they’ll have a very big problem.”
Hours later that day, the president urged Hamas to start returning the bodies of the deceased hostages, warning that “other Countries” could get involved.
“Some of the bodies are hard to reach, but others they can return now and, for some reason, they are not. Perhaps it has to do with their disarming, but when I said, ‘Both sides would be treated fairly,’ that only applies if they comply with their obligations. Let’s see what they do over the next 48 hours. I am watching this very closely,” Trump wrote in a Saturday post on Truth Social.
Updated: 1:54 p.m.
