Hamas<\/a> violations of the ceasefire, as far-right figures in the Israeli government clamoured for a return to war.<\/p>\nThe bombardment prompted Hamas, which denied responsibility for the gun attack, to delay a planned handover of another hostage\u2019s remains, which had been scheduled for Tuesday night.<\/p>\n
Trump, speaking to reporters on Air Force One on Wednesday, said nothing would jeopardise the ceasefire but Israel \u201cshould hit back\u201d if its soldiers were killed. \u201cThey killed an Israeli soldier. So the Israelis hit back. And they should hit back,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The US vice-president, JD Vance, said earlier that the ceasefire was holding despite \u201cskirmishes\u201d.<\/p>\n
However, Tuesday night\u2019s attack exposed all the frailties of a ceasefire that from the outset has been marred by violence. Before the latest overnight strikes, Gaza\u2019s media office accused Israel of committing 80 violations since the ceasefire began, killing 97 Palestinians and injuring 230.<\/p>\n
The Gaza civil defence spokesperson Mahmoud Bassal described the situation in Gaza as \u201ccatastrophic and terrifying\u201d, calling the strikes \u201ca clear and flagrant violation of the ceasefire agreement\u201d. He told AFP: \u201cThe Israeli strikes targeted tents for displaced people, homes and the vicinity of a hospital in the strip.\u201d<\/p>\n
A spokesperson for the IDF, when asked if the strikes were a resumption of the full-scale invasion, said on Tuesday that the military \u201ccan\u2019t elaborate on the scale yet\u201d. On Wednesday the IDF said it had reinstated the Gaza ceasefire.<\/p>\n
The Israeli military published footage of what it said were members of Hamas reburying a body in order to \u201cstage a false discovery\u201d for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which it said was Hamas \u201cattempting to create a false impression of efforts to locate the bodies\u201d. Hamas has yet to comment on the claims.<\/p>\n
The news has enraged Israelis, with the far-right ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich lashing out at Hamas and calling on Netanyahu to resume the war.<\/p>\n
Under the ceasefire agreement, which took effect on 10 October, Hamas is required to return the remains of all Israeli hostages as soon as possible. In exchange, Israel has agreed to hand over 15 Palestinian bodies for each Israeli.<\/p>\n
Hamas has so far returned the remains of 15 hostages, with 13 bodies still in the territory. The militant group has said it does not know the precise whereabouts of all the bodies, saying it has lost contact with several of its units that had been holding the captives and were reportedly killed during Israeli bombardments.<\/p>\n
Although Trump has conceded that some of the bodies are difficult to reach, he said \u201cothers they can return now and for some reason they are not\u201d. \u201cIt may have to do with the disarming of Hamas,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Israel has made Hamas\u2019s disarmament a central objective, describing it as a key condition for bringing an end to the two-year war.<\/p>\n
On Sunday, Hamas\u2019s chief negotiator, Khalil al-Hayya, said the group\u2019s weapons were \u201ctied to the existence of occupation and aggression\u201d. He said: \u201cIf the occupation ends, these weapons will be handed over to the state.\u201d It remained unclear whether he was alluding to the still-unformed Palestinian governing authority expected to take over Gaza\u2019s administration once Hamas relinquishes control.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Israeli airstrikes on Gaza overnight killed at least 104 Palestinians, including children, in what appeared to be the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":231832,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":{"0":"post-231831","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231831","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=231831"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231831\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/231832"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=231831"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=231831"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=231831"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}