CAIRO/JERUSALEM – Hamas accused Israel on Sunday of deliberately escalating its military campaign in Gaza to derail understandings reached with mediators and the United States on completing the implementation of a ceasefire agreement, after Israeli air strikes killed at least 18 Palestinians across the enclave.
The Palestinian group said Israeli attacks since Sunday morning had “wiped out” entire families and amounted to a calculated attempt by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to obstruct progress made in negotiations aimed at advancing the next phase of the ceasefire.
“The bombardment constitutes a deliberate escalation by the government of war criminal Netanyahu, aimed at obstructing the understandings reached with the mediators, including the US administration, to complete the implementation of the ceasefire agreement,” Hamas said in a statement.
The group urged mediators and guarantors of the ceasefire to assume their responsibilities by condemning the attacks and immediately pressing Israel to halt its military operations and comply with the agreement.
Hamas described the strikes as acts amounting to war crimes and crimes against humanity, calling on the international community to pursue legal action against Israeli leaders and adopt measures to protect Palestinians, whom it said continued to face the threat of “genocide and displacement.”
The accusations came two days after the Peace Board and US President Donald Trump announced agreement on a roadmap to implement the next stage of the Gaza ceasefire. The board said Hamas had accepted the detailed plan, although Israel has not formally endorsed the proposal.
Israeli air strikes continued for a second consecutive day on Sunday, hitting Gaza City, Deir al-Balah in central Gaza and the southern Khan Younis area, producing the highest daily death toll in weeks, according to Palestinian health officials.
Medical sources said at least four people were killed in strikes on Deir al-Balah, while another attack near Khan Younis wounded five people and set tents ablaze in the Mawasi area, where thousands of displaced Palestinians are sheltering.
A couple and their nine-year-old son were killed when a house in Mawasi was struck, Palestinian officials said. In Gaza City, another couple and their child were killed in an air strike on an apartment, while two more people died after a tent near the Egyptian representative mission was hit. Later strikes killed two people in the city’s Zeitoun district and at least three others when a vehicle was targeted near Saraya Square. Another fatality was reported near Jabalia in northern Gaza.
The Israeli military said a strike on an apartment in Deir al-Balah targeted two commanders from Hamas’s elite Nukhba force. It said operations in Gaza City and Jabalia had also targeted what it described as “military operatives” and that assessments of those strikes were continuing.
The latest violence came despite renewed diplomatic efforts following Trump’s announcement on Thursday that Hamas and other Palestinian armed factions had agreed in principle to disarm as part of a broader plan to end the conflict.
Israeli officials, however, insisted that any political progress depended first on Hamas relinquishing its weapons.
Energy Minister Eli Cohen, a member of Netanyahu’s security cabinet, said Israel would give Hamas the opportunity to disarm but remained highly sceptical that it would do so.
“There has been no agreement to halt attacks on Gaza,” Cohen told Israel’s Army Radio, adding that if Hamas refused to disarm Israel might have to take full control of the enclave, where it already controls around 70 percent of the territory.
“In the deal we signed with the United States, our position is that Hamas must be dismantled. This is the first thing that must happen,” he said.
Later, Netanyahu’s office reiterated Israel’s concerns over the US-backed disarmament proposal.
“The most important concern for Israel is that nothing can happen before Hamas completely and truly disarms,” government spokesman Doron Spielman said.
The Peace Board’s lead envoy for Gaza, Nickolay Mladenov, said the latest escalation had occurred despite intensive efforts by mediators to secure agreement among Palestinian factions on the roadmap.
Writing on X, Mladenov said he was working with all parties, mediators and regional partners to de-escalate the situation and create the conditions needed to implement Trump’s plan in full.
“Achieving a lasting peace is hard but achievable if everyone makes their best efforts,” he said.