The wave of deadly airstrikes that shattered the pause in hostilities in Gaza is “only the beginning”, Benjamin Netanyahu has warned, also promising that the new offensive would continue until Israel achieved all of its war aims – destroying Hamas and freeing all hostages held by the militant group.
Any further ceasefire negotiations would take place “under fire”, the Israeli prime minister said in a televised address on Tuesday night, his first after Israel launched attacks that killed more than 400 people in the devastated Palestinian territory, in the bloodiest single day of violence since the first months of the war in 2023.
“Hamas has already felt the strength of our hand in the past 24 hours. And I want to promise you – and them – this is only the beginning,” Netanyahu told viewers.
Earlier, Israel’s defence minister raised the prospect of many weeks or even months of war in Gaza.
“Hamas must understand that the rules of the game have changed,” Israel Katz told reporters during a visit to an airbase, adding that “the gates of hell will open and it will face the full might of the IDF in the air, at sea and on land” if hostages were not freed.
The Israeli army has issued evacuation orders covering the northernmost and eastern parts of Gaza, suggesting renewed ground attacks could be launched soon.
Palestinian health authorities reported 404 deaths in the strikes, which Israeli military officials said targeted Hamas military commanders and political officials. More than 600 were reported injured. Air attacks and artillery fire were reported to be continuing across much of Gaza during the afternoon and into the evening.
Aid officials in Gaza said hundreds, possibly thousands, of people were on the move to comply with the Israeli evacuation orders. “There is no resilience. People … are in a very weak state, physically and psychologically,” one aid official in Gaza told the Guardian.
In Washington, a White House spokesperson said Israel had consulted the US administration before carrying out the strikes.
Attacks were reported in northern Gaza and in the central cities of Deir al-Balah and Khan Younis. One strike was reported to have killed 17 members of a family in Rafah. The dead included five children, their parents, and a man and his three children, medics at the hospital that received the bodies said.
Witnesses said patients lay on the floor of the Nasser hospital in Khan Younis, some screaming, and a young girl cried as her bloody arm was bandaged. At al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City, survivors held rushed funeral rites for dozens of body bags lining the yard. Mothers sobbed over the bloodied bodies of children, as warplanes hummed in the sky. Doctors struggled to treat the flow of wounded.
Casualties included senior Hamas officials, including the most senior political leader in Gaza and ministers, as well as many women and children, Palestinian officials said.
Lt Col Nadav Shoshani, a military spokesperson, said Israel had launched strikes after discovering Hamas was planning new raids to capture or kill Israeli civilians or soldiers and because Hamas had refused to release more of the 59 hostages held in Gaza, thus breaking the ceasefire agreement that came into effect in January.
“Hamas could have chosen a different path. It could have chosen to release all the hostages but instead chose refusal, terror, and war,” Shoshani said in a statement.
Netanyahu’s office said Hamas had rejected proposals from Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, for an extension of the pause in hostilities.
Hamas said hostage releases were due only during a scheduled second phase that Israel agreed in January but has since refused to discuss or implement.
The first phase of the ceasefire agreed in January involved 25 living Israeli hostages and the remains of eight dead Israelis returned by militant groups in Gaza in exchange for about 1,900 Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails.
Under the scheduled second phase of the ceasefire, there would have been a total Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, the release of all hostages and a definitive end to hostilities. With the backing of the US, Israel has been pushing instead for the return of all remaining hostages in exchange for further prisoner releases and a 30- to 60-day truce, in line with Witkoff’s proposal.
Earlier this month, Israel blocked deliveries of aid from entering Gaza and cut off remaining electricity supplies in an effort to pressure Hamas.
Taher al-Nunu, a Hamas official, said the international community faced “a moral test”.
“Either it allows the return of the crimes committed by the occupation army or it enforces a commitment to ending the aggression and war against innocent people in Gaza,” Nunu said.
The strikes come at a tense moment in Israeli domestic politics. Netanyahu said on Sunday he would fire Ronen Bar, the head of the Shin Bet internal security service, a controversial move that immediately prompted accusations of authoritarianism and plans for protests on Wednesday. Critics accuse Netanyahu of using war to reinforce the support of far-right allies for his coalition government and so maintain his own grip on power.
Thousands of people took part in a protest in Tel Aviv on Tuesday night against Netanyahu’s plans to dismiss Bar, along with Gali Baharav-Miara, Israel’s attorney general, who is a fierce critic of the prime minister.
Much of Gaza lies in ruins after 15 months of fighting, which erupted on 7 October 2023 when thousands of Hamas-led gunmen attacked Israeli communities around the Gaza Strip, killing 1,200 people and abducting 251 hostages.
The Israeli campaign in response has killed more than 48,000 people and reduced much of the territory to ruins. Ninety per cent of houses are damaged or destroyed, and much of the population is displaced. Roads, hospitals, schools, sanitation systems and much else have been reduced to rubble.
