(Bloomberg) — Israel launched overnight airstrikes across Gaza that Hamas said killed hundreds of people, shattering a nearly two-month ceasefire with the Palestinian group.
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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed Tuesday to act “with increasing military strength,” saying Hamas had repeatedly refused to release its remaining hostages. The move brought to an abrupt end any immediate hope the truce would be extended into a second phase, initially slated for the start of this month.
As well as freeing the roughly 60 captives still in Gaza, Israel wants Hamas to disarm and step down from power in the territory. The Iran-backed group, designated a terrorist organization by the US and many other countries, had been calling for Israeli troops to withdraw.
Hamas said at least 404 people have been killed while many others are missing since the airstrikes began.
The Gaza operation, along with others overnight by Israel on Lebanon and Syria and US attacks on the Houthis in Yemen since Saturday, have ended the relative calm in the Middle East in recent weeks.
Gold and oil prices have risen. The former increased to a fresh all-time high, while Brent crude is up about 2.1% to $72.04 a barrel in the past two days, heading for its best week since early-January. The Israeli shekel weakened 0.7% as of 12:23 p.m. local time, the worst performer in Bloomberg’s basket of 31 ‘expanded major’ currencies.
The Gaza bombardment is the fiercest since a truce brokered by Egypt, Qatar and the US started in January. It officially ended in early March — with Hamas having released around 35 hostages and Israel freeing more than 1,000 imprisoned Palestinians. There was no official extension of the deal as the warring sides disagreed on the way forward during talks through the mediators.
Israel had warned that it could restart military operations if Hamas didn’t agree to release more hostages, of which it believes around 25 are alive.
After the strikes began, Hamas said Netanyahu had decided to “overturn the ceasefire agreement, putting the captives in Gaza at an unknown fate.” The group earlier accused Israel of failing to meet its commitments under the truce, citing the Netanyahu government’s decision to stop aid supplies getting into Gaza.
Large swathes of the Palestinian territory have been destroyed in the 17 months of war, with the vast majority of its 2 million population displaced. More than 48,000 people have been killed, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run health authority.
In recent days, Israel gathered evidence that led it to conclude Hamas was planning attacks on Israeli troops in the Gaza buffer zone and a cross-border raid into Israeli communities along the lines of the October 2023 attack that triggered the war, according to a senior military officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence. About 1,200 people were killed in the Oct. 7 raid and 250 abducted.
Israeli intelligence saw what it believed to be Hamas preparations for such actions, the officer said, with the experience of Oct. 7 informing the military’s decision to act preemptively, rather than wait and see if they are serious.
The officer said the air operation is ongoing and decisions about whether to increase activity would be made by the government.
Hostage Families
The renewed attacks are opposed by some of the families of hostages.
“The worst fear of the families, of the hostages and of the citizens of Israel has come to pass,” the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, one of the biggest such groups in Israel, said on Tuesday. “The Israeli government has chosen to give up on the hostages.”
Far-right members of Netanyahu’s coalition government said Israel had no choice.
“Avoiding military pressure would have only allowed Hamas to bide its time and re-build,” said Ofir Sofer, a minister and member of the Religious Zionism party, which is led by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich. “The decision we took is the right one. The ceasefire did not collapse – it ended. We have full backing from the US.”
Israel consulted the US on the operation, the White House said.
The strikes are the latest sign the Middle East conflicts that erupted following Hamas’ deadly October 2023 attack on Israel are again escalating. The Pentagon has said its offensive against the Houthis — who, like Hamas, are supported by Iran and also designated as terrorists by the US — will be “unrelenting” until the group stops targeting ships around the Red Sea. Those assaults, which began in late 2023 in solidarity with Hamas, have forced vessels to avoid the area and pushed up freight rates.
“The Houthis, Iran, all those who seek to terrorize not just Israel, but also the United States of America, will see a price to pay,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a Fox News interview. “All hell will break loose.”
Late last week, Hamas offered to release the remaining five American hostages, one of who is alive. The US and Israel rejected the move, with Israel saying it was an attempt by Hamas to drive a wedge between the two countries. The US has said that freeing its citizens, who are also Israeli nationals, is a priority but that it won’t accept a deal that prioritizes them over other hostages.
Hostage Deal
Under the first phase of the ceasefire, Israel withdrew from the Netzarim corridor, a strategic route that divided Gaza into two parts. That allowed hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians to return to what was left of their homes in the north.
Before the latest escalation, the US said it had presented a “bridge” proposal that would extend the truce beyond the Ramadan and Passover holidays — into April — and see Hamas release living hostages in exchange for prisoners. That, according to the US, would enable more humanitarian assistance to enter Gaza and work to continue on a durable halt to fighting.
–With assistance from Josh Wingrove, Derek Wallbank, Philip Glamann, Dana Khraiche and Dan Williams.
(Updates with market reaction in sixth paragraph.)
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