THE Israeli military has killed at least 20 Palestinians in attacks across Gaza after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered “powerful” strikes following an exchange of gunfire in southern Rafah, during which one Israeli soldier was wounded.
The attacks on Tuesday marked the most significant flare-up in violence since a ceasefire brokered by United States President Donald Trump came into effect in the war-devastated territory on October 10.
Hamas’s armed wing, the Qassam Brigades, accused Israel of violating the truce and said it would postpone the planned handover of the body of a missing captive.
In a statement, it also warned that any Israeli escalation “will hinder search, digging, and retrieval operations of the bodies, which will lead to a delay in recovering the bodies” of the remaining 13 captives in Gaza.
In Washington, DC, US Vice President JD Vance insisted that the truce was still holding despite the attacks and the claims of violations by both sides.
“That doesn’t mean that there aren’t going to be little skirmishes here and there,” Vance told reporters on Capitol Hill.
“We know that Hamas or somebody else within Gaza attacked an [Israeli] soldier. We expect the Israelis are going to respond, but I think the president’s peace is going to hold despite that.”
Hamas has denied any involvement in the attack in Rafah.
In Gaza, medical sources told Al Jazeera that the victims of Tuesday’s attacks included four people killed in a strike on a residential building in the Sabra neighbourhood of northern Gaza City, and five others in southern Khan Younis.
The sources said that at least 50 others have been wounded.
Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud, reporting from Gaza City, said that a missile had fallen behind al-Shifa Hospital and that there had been “major activity in the air over Gaza’s skies, with drones hovering above”.
“Eyewitnesses described the strike as massive. We are in an area about 20 minutes away, and we could hear it from here,” he said. “The attack caused a state of mayhem and panic among patients and medical staff inside the hospital.”
In the Sabra neighbourhood, efforts to rescue Palestinians trapped in the rubble continued through the night, with workers using their bare hands to dig through the debris.
Medics said the wounded included women and children.
“This is a breach of the ceasefire,” Ibrahim Abu Reesh, a civil defence worker, said from the site. “We have casualties. Our crews are searching this building to try and locate and rescue as many people as possible.”
The attacks came after Netanyahu’s office issued a statement saying the prime minister had ordered the military to “carry out powerful strikes” in Gaza.
The statement did not give a specific reason for the attacks, but it was followed by a statement from Israel’s defence minister, Israel Katz, who blamed Hamas for the attack in Rafah. Katz pledged that the group would “pay a heavy price” for the alleged attacks on Israeli soldiers.