IDF says it targeted mid-level Hamas commanders, is prepared to widen offensive beyond airstrikes; death toll reportedly over 300; White House backs attacks, says it was consulted
The ceasefire between Israel and Hamas collapsed early Tuesday morning after roughly two months, as the Israel Defense Forces launched dozens of strikes throughout Gaza under orders from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who cited the terror group’s “repeated refusal” to release Israeli hostages.
At least 326 Palestinians were killed, including children, according to unverified figures from the Hamas-run health ministry, which doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants.
Netanyahu’s office said the decision to resume strikes shortly after midnight “followed Hamas’s repeated refusal to release our hostages, as well as its rejection of all of the proposals it has received from US special envoy to the Mideast Envoy Steve Witkoff and from the mediators.”
Hamas has insisted on sticking to the original terms of the deal, which was supposed to enter its second phase at the beginning of the month. That phase envisioned Israel fully withdrawing from Gaza and agreeing to permanently end the war in exchange for the release of the remaining living hostages. While Israel signed on to the deal, Netanyahu has long insisted that Israel will not end the war until Hamas’s governing and military capabilities have been destroyed.
Accordingly, Israel refused to even hold talks regarding the terms of phase two, which were supposed to begin on February 3.
Accepting Israel’s aversion to phase two, Witkoff presented a bridge proposal last week that would have seen phase one extended for several weeks during which five living hostages would be released. The US envoy said Sunday that Hamas’s response to the offer was a “non-starter” and warned of impending consequences if the terror group did not change its approach.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told Fox News that Israel had consulted with the Trump administration before conducting the strikes.
“Hamas could have released hostages to extend the ceasefire but instead chose refusal and war,” White House National Security Council spokesperson Brian Hughes separately told The Times of Israel.
US President Donald Trump was integral in securing the ceasefire, with Witkoff leaning hard on Netanyahu to accept the hostage deal in January after months of deadlock under the previous Biden administration. Trump has campaigned on ending wars worldwide but has quickly grown impatient with Hamas since entering office, repeatedly threatening the terror group with destruction if the hostages weren’t released.
Hamas issued a statement early Tuesday saying Netanyahu’s government’s decision to “overturn the ceasefire agreement” exposes the hostages “to an unknown fate.”
Hamas called on the mediators — the US, Qatar and Egypt — to hold Netanyahu fully responsible for breaking the ceasefire.
The terror group demanded Arab and Muslim countries to back “Palestinian resistance” aimed at “breaking the unjust blockade imposed on Gaza.” Hamas also urged the UN Security Council to urgently convene to issue a resolution obligating Israel to halt its “aggression.”
Hostages’ families have long argued that those aims contradict each other and that a return to fighting will endanger their loved ones’ lives.
Hostage Omri Miran’s wife Lishay tweeted a broken heart emoji shortly after the strikes began. Former hostage Noa Argamani posted the same thing.
Polling over the past month has indicated that a majority of the Israeli public agrees with the families and backs ending the war in exchange for the release of the hostages.
But those polls have also shown that a plurality of coalition voters back resuming the war. Netanyahu’s hardline coalition partners have also threatened to collapse the government if he ends the war before Hamas has been dismantled.
Israel wasn’t able to do this during the first 15-plus months of war but is emboldened by the new administration in Washington, which is less likely to criticize Jerusalem over potential civilian deaths or the lack of humanitarian aid in Gaza, which the IDF has blocked entirely since the end of the first phase of the ceasefire.
Separately, Netanyahu announced on Monday that he plans to fire Shin Bet director Ronen Bar, one of several security chiefs who regularly sparred with the premier over his handling of the war. The security establishment has argued that Israel should agree to the original terms of the ceasefire in order to secure the release of the remaining hostages before it is too late, insisting that Hamas can be dealt with at a later date.
The cabinet was initially slated to hold a vote on Bar’s dismissal on Tuesday, but that meeting had not been finalized as of Monday night and the resumption of fighting could well delay that process further.
Bar’s agency joined the IDF in planning the extensive wave of airstrikes across the Gaza Strip, which the army said targeted mid-level Hamas commanders, members of the terror group’s politburo, and its infrastructure. The operation was dubbed by the military “Strength and Sword.”
Footage from Gaza shows dozens of children, women, and elderly people among the casualties. But the death toll also reportedly included several top Hamas members.
Two Hamas sources told AFP that among those killed was Mahmoud Abu Watfa, who headed the terror group’s interior ministry.
Abu Watfa, who headed Hamas’s police and internal security services in the Gaza Strip, was killed in a strike on Gaza City, said the two sources, one of them an official at the interior ministry.
According to Gazan media reports, the strikes also killed Issam Da’alis, a member of Hamas’s political bureau in Gaza and head of the governmental activity monitoring committee, a position roughly akin to prime minister.
However, reports about Da’alis’s death have circulated since July 2024, saying he was killed in an airstrike back then. There has never been an official confirmation of his death by the IDF or Hamas, though the Asharq al-Awsat news site quoted Hamas sources in January as confirming his death.
Abu Ubaida Al-Jamassi, also a member of Hamas’s political bureau in Gaza and, according to some sources, the head of Hamas’s emergency committee — which has managed Gaza during the war — was also killed overnight, reports said.
Another senior official reportedly killed was Bahjat Abu Sultan, a high-ranking official in Hamas’s interior ministry, the ministry responsible for security forces outside of its military wing.
Ahmad Al-Khatta, the director-general of Hamas’s justice ministry in Gaza, was also killed, according to media reports in Gaza.
An Israeli military official briefing reporters said that the IDF conducted dozens of strikes using dozens of aircraft after Netanyahu signed off on the operation earlier Monday.
The strikes came after the IDF identified Hamas’s preparations to launch attacks on Israel along with its efforts to regroup and rearm, the Israeli military official said.
The official said the military intends to continue the airstrikes “as long as necessary,” and widen the surprise assault beyond an aerial campaign if it is ordered to.
The IDF is deployed and prepared on all fronts, including with heightened alert with its air defenses, the official added.
The plans for Tuesday’s operation had been kept secret until now for the IDF to have the element of surprise, the military official said.
Several hours after the start of the bombing campaign, the IDF issued evacuation warnings to Palestinians residing on the edges of the Gaza Strip, possibly indicating an intention to expand the offensive.
In a post on X, the IDF’s Arabic-language spokesman, Col. Avichay Adraee, published a map of “dangerous combat zones” that Gazans should flee from. They included the towns of Beit Hanoun and Khuza’a, and the Abasan suburbs of Khan Younis.
“The IDF has launched a strong offensive against terror organizations. These designated areas are considered dangerous combat zones,” he said. “For your own safety, you must evacuate immediately to known shelters in western Gaza City and in Khan Younis.”
He warned that remaining in the areas marked on the map in red “puts your lives and the lives of your family members in danger.”
The European Union and Palestinian officials who have been operating the Rafah Crossing along with the private security contractors who have been conducting inspections of Gazans passing through the Netzarim Corridor were not in the Strip when Israel began its airstrikes, a European diplomat told The Times of Israel.
They had been entering Gaza each day from Egypt in the morning and then departing the Strip at night, the diplomat said.
Israel informed them Tuesday morning that it was shuttering the Rafah Crossing as it intensifies its operations against Hamas, and that they therefore would not be allowed back into the Strip for the time being, the diplomat said.
Meanwhile, in Israel, following an assessment, the IDF’s Home Front Command decided to cancel school in Gaza border communities on Tuesday in addition to halting the train line to the southern city of Sderot. Gatherings were also restricted to 10 people indoors and 100 people outdoors in the Gaza border area.
Zamir, the chief of staff, managed the operation with the Shin Bet’s Bar from the IDF’s Kirya headquarters in Tel Aviv. Images released by the military showed Zamir, Bar, and Israeli Air Force chief Maj. Gen. Tomer Bar at the IAF’s underground command center at the IDF headquarters.
Much of Gaza now lies in ruins after 15 months of fighting, which erupted on October 7, 2023, when thousands of Hamas-led gunmen attacked Israeli communities around the Gaza Strip, killing some 1,200 people and abducting 251 hostages into Gaza.
The Israeli campaign in response has killed more than 48,000 people, according to Palestinian health authorities, and destroyed much of the housing and infrastructure in the enclave, including the hospital system. Israel says it has killed some 20,000 combatants in battle as of January and another 1,600 terrorists inside Israel on October 7.
Content retrieved from: https://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-restarts-gaza-strikes-blames-hamas-for-not-releasing-hostages-as-truce-collapses/.
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