Israel launched airstrikes in the Gaza Strip and blamed Hamas for what it called a significant Palestinian ambush of its troops, even as trouble-shooters assembled in an effort to keep President Donald Trump’s peace plan on track.
Signaling Washington’s focus on preserving the ceasefire secured on Oct. 10, an Israeli official said Trump’s vice president, JD Vance, was expected to accompany White House mediators Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner to the region this week.
The US embassy in Jerusalem had no immediate comment.
Under Trump’s internationally backed plan, the truce is meant to lead to Hamas disarming and ceding what remains of its governance to a foreign-supervised alternative Palestinian administration. Hamas has balked at those conditions.
The partial implementation to date has seen Israeli troops and tanks redeploy to a “yellow line” that still leaves more than half of the shattered enclave under their control. That’s enabled Palestinian civilians in the rest to begin picking up the pieces with a measure of safety, while Hamas returned living hostages to Israel as required by the deal.
Hamas says at least 27 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces over the last week; Israeli officials said troops fired to prevent incursions across the yellow line, which is now being marked with colored stanchions as a clearer warning.
In Sunday’s incident, Palestinians fired anti-armor rockets and guns at Israeli troops operating in Rafah, a southern city within the yellow line, the army said, without providing details on casualties. A similar ambush attempt in the area was reported by the army on Friday, with only small-scale counter-fire following.
This time, there were air strikes as far away as Gaza City, about 30 kilometers (19 miles) to the north. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office, accusing Hamas of violating the ceasefire, said he’d ordered that “strong action be taken against terrorist targets in the Gaza Strip.” Palestinian witnesses said at least five people were killed. Gaza residents inside areas designated a “dangerous combat zone” were ordered to evacuate westward.
Hamas said it remained committed to the truce and that it had lost contact with, and therefore couldn’t be held responsible for, any Palestinian fighters operating in Rafah.
Israel “continues to violate the agreement and fabricate flimsy pretexts to justify its crimes,” Hamas official Ezzat Al-Risheq said on the group’s Telegram feed.
Though the last living Gaza hostages are now free, 16 who were killed during the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas raid which triggered the war, or who’ve died in captivity in the following two years, remain unaccounted for. Hamas says it needs special equipment to locate all remains with the Gaza ruins. On Sunday, however, it announced the discovery of another hostage body.
Israel, accusing the Islamist faction of prevaricating, on Saturday said it would indefinitely postpone reopening the Rafah terminal on the Gaza-Egypt border for humanitarian supplies. The movement of aid has increased through Israel’s border, but on a scale that Palestinians say falls short of the needs of a destitute populace.
“We haven’t concluded this war. If Hamas doesn’t lay down its arms after all hostages are recovered, we shall go back to active combat,” Miri Regev, the Israeli transport minister and a member of Netanyahu’s security cabinet, told Israel’s Army Radio.
Trump broke with US convention by directly engaging Hamas despite the State Department’s designation of the group as terrorists, a move that helped seal the peace deal. Yet after declaring the two-year war over, his tone has darkened in recent days.
Trump condemned a lethal internal crackdown by Hamas, warning that if it continues “we will have no choice but to go in and kill them.” Hamas defended its actions as a law-and-order drive in areas vacated by Israel.
Trump’s deal won the support of Arab, Muslim and Western powers, several of which have voiced interest in contributing to a post-war stabilization force in Gaza.
A multi-national taskforce is now assembling in Israel, with military delegates from least two other countries joining the US lead, according to an official who requested anonymity. Germany’s defense ministry said on Saturday it had sent three soldiers to the Civil Military Coordination Centre in southern Israel.
A poll on Israel’s Channel 12 TV on Friday found that 36% of Israelis believe their country won the war while 9% saw Hamas as victorious, while 48% said neither side did.
Netanyahu, who said Saturday he plans to run for election again in 2026, may not be in a rush to resume a conflict which put strains on the conscript military and whose toll on Palestinian civilians plunged Israel into global isolation.
Two years of war caused more than 67,000 deaths in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run health ministry, which doesn’t distinguish between combatants and civilians. Israel lost 1,200 people in the Oct. 7 attacks, and more than 250 troops in Gaza fighting.
