The Israel Defense Forces said it launched a wave of airstrikes against Hamas targets across Gaza on Wednesday after terror operatives opened fire on troops earlier in the day in the enclave’s southern Khan Younis area.
The military said that no soldiers were wounded in the attack. The gunfire took place in IDF-held territory, on the eastern side of the Yellow Line that, since the onset of the truce, has split the Gaza Strip between Israeli and Hamas control.
The Israel Defense Forces said the shooting was a violation of the nearly six-week-old ceasefire in the Strip. The clash was the latest incident to test the truce, which has so far held despite several bouts of conflict.
Since the ceasefire deal took effect on October 10, IDF troops have remained in control of slightly more than half of Gaza, with the rest under de-facto Hamas control, as US-backed efforts to disarm the terror group and install a multinational peacekeeping force slowly proceed.
The IDF has said it remains deployed in Gaza “in accordance with the ceasefire agreement and will continue to operate to remove any immediate threat.”
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Palestinian medics and Hamas-linked authorities reported that 25 people were killed by the Israeli airstrikes, split between the Gaza City neighborhood of Zeitoun in the north and around Khan Younis in the south. The figure did not differentiate between combatants and civilians.
The strike in Zeitoun hit a building belonging to Muslim religious authorities, and the Khan Younis attack was on a UN-run club, both of which house displaced families, according to Hamas authorities.
Palestinians gather to receive donated food at a community kitchen in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip, Wednesday, Nov. 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
The IDF strikes had targeted senior Hamas field commanders, according to military sources.
Israeli defense officials were assessing on Wednesday whether the commander of Hamas’s Zeitoun Battalion in Gaza City, and the chief of the terror group’s naval forces, were killed in the strikes.
Hamas denounced the strikes as a “dangerous escalation,” warning they jeopardized a fragile ceasefire.
“We consider this a dangerous escalation through which the war criminal [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu seeks to resume the genocide against our people,” Hamas wrote in a statement.
Also on Wednesday, the IDF said it killed a terror operative who crossed the Yellow Line in northern Gaza. The military said several operatives had been spotted crossing the line and approaching reservists of the Carmeli Brigade deployed to the area.
The operatives “posed an immediate threat” to the troops, who then opened fire and “eliminated a terrorist to remove the threat,” the military said. The other operatives apparently managed to flee.
Three IDF soldiers have been killed in attacks blamed on Hamas since the beginning of the ceasefire. Palestinian authorities say Israeli forces have killed 305 people in strikes on Gaza since the truce began, nearly half of them in one day when Israel retaliated for an attack on its troops.
Reserve soldiers arrive at their base ahead of the IDF’s entry into Gaza City, September 2, 2025. (Tsafrir Abayov/Flash90)
The violence occurred as efforts to advance the ceasefire are ongoing. Earlier this week, the United Nations Security Council approved a US-backed resolution modeled on US President Donald Trump’s 20-point peace plan for Gaza.
The plan envisages Hamas disarming and an International Stabilization Force, made up of troops from a number of countries, taking responsibility for Gaza’s security. Progress on assembling the force has been slow, with few countries appearing eager to contribute troops.
The Trump administration appeared to side with Israel after the deadly exchange of fire on Wednesday.
“After the United Nations overwhelmingly endorsed President Trump’s 20 Point Peace Plan, Hamas is clearly lashing out and is now attempting to break the ceasefire and not fulfill their commitment to demilitarize and surrender control of the Gaza government. These desperate tactics will fail,” a US official told The Times of Israel in a statement.
A European Union official said the bloc wants to train up to 3,000 Palestinian police officers in the Gaza Strip under a program similar to one it already runs in the West Bank.
There will be a “need to stabilize Gaza with an important police force” if the ceasefire endures, said the official, who was granted anonymity to discuss the sensitive matter.
Under the US-backed peace plan, the international force would work with Israel and Egypt and newly trained Palestinian police to help secure border areas and demilitarize Gaza. Egypt has also said it is training Palestinian police to be deployed in Gaza.
The EU has financed a police training mission in the West Bank since 2006, with a budget of around 13 million euros ($15 million).
Around 7,000 police in Gaza are still on the payroll of the Palestinian Authority, which governs parts of the West Bank, the EU official said. Many have retired or are unable to work, but about 3,000 could be trained, he added.
The training would take place outside of the Gaza Strip, he said.
Footage showing apparent efforts by Hamas to recover the remains of a dead hostage, in Khan Younis, the Gaza Strip, November 13, 2025. (Al Jazeera screenshot)
Alongside the talks on security arrangements, Hamas is also obligated, under the ceasefire, to return all of the hostages it is holding. It has released all of the living and most of the deceased hostages more than two years after they were kidnapped in the terror group’s October 7, 2023, attack.
But the bodies of three slain hostages remain in Gaza, with the terror group saying it cannot find or access some of them. Israel has cast doubt on those claims.
US envoy Steve Witkoff, who has been a key broker of the ceasefire talks, had been slated to meet with top Hamas negotiator Khalil al-Hayya in Istanbul on Wednesday. But the meeting was canceled because a prior meeting between Witkoff and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was also called off, an Arab diplomat told The Times of Israel.
Meanwhile, Hamas has reasserted its authority over the parts of Gaza that it controls. A Gaza company that operates water desalination plants serving nearly half of the enclave’s population said Tuesday that it had resumed operations after Hamas-led security agents freed a staff member they had detained on Monday.
A statement issued by the Abdul Salam Yassin Company, whose services reach more than 1 million people, said the decision to resume operations came after the issue was resolved, adding that the staff member is “fine and in good health.”
The company apologized for what it said was a “misunderstanding” that led to the detention of its employee. It affirmed its respect for the Hamas-led government.
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