Palestinians use limited resources to remove the remains of buildings destroyed in an Israeli attack in Khan Younis, Gaza, on October 28, 2025.
Mohamed Esrae | Anadolu | Getty Images
Israeli warplanes launched strikes on the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, the latest test of a fragile deal brokered by US President Donald Trump earlier this month, after Israel accused the militant group Hamas of violating a ceasefire agreement in the Palestinian territories.
Local health authorities said at least 26 people were killed in the airstrikes, including five who hit a house in the Buraij refugee camp in central Gaza, four who were killed in a building in Gaza City’s Sabra district and five who were killed in a car in Khan Younis. Attacks by Israeli military planes continued across the Gaza Strip into the early hours of Wednesday, witnesses said.
The Israeli military did not immediately comment on the attack, which was the latest violence in a three-week ceasefire and followed a statement from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office that he had ordered an immediate “strong offensive.”
The statement did not give a specific reason for the attack, but Israeli military officials said Hamas violated the ceasefire by carrying out attacks against Israeli forces in areas of the enclave under Israeli control.
“This is another blatant violation of the ceasefire,” the official said.
The US-backed ceasefire agreement went into effect on October 10, halting a two-year war that began with a deadly Hamas-led attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.
Both sides accuse each other of violating the ceasefire.
Vice President J.D. Vance, who joined a parade of senior Trump administration officials visiting Israel last week, said that despite the recent escalation, “the ceasefire continues.”
“That doesn’t mean there won’t be small skirmishes here and there,” he told reporters at the Capitol. “We know that either Hamas or someone from the Gaza Strip attacked (Israeli) soldiers. We expect the Israelis to react, but we think the president’s peace will stand regardless.”
Israeli media reported early Tuesday that there was a gunfight between Israeli forces and Hamas fighters in the southern Gaza city of Rafah. The Israeli military did not respond to requests for comment on the report.
Hamas denied responsibility for the attack on Israeli forces in Rafah. The group also said in a statement that it would continue to honor the ceasefire agreement in Gaza.
Tuesday’s attack on Gaza City followed what Israel called a “targeted attack” on a person in central Gaza that it claimed was planning an attack on Israeli forces on Saturday.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu participates in the national memorial service for the fallen soldiers of the Iron Sword War on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem on October 16, 2025.
Alex Kolomoisky | Pool | via Reuters
Prime Minister Netanyahu accuses Hamas of violating ceasefire
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said earlier Tuesday that Hamas had violated the ceasefire by handing over the wrong remains of hostages in the process of returning them to Israel.
Prime Minister Netanyahu said the remains handed over on Monday were those of Israeli citizen Ofir Tsarfati, who was killed in a Hamas attack on October 7, 2023. Zarfati’s body had already been partially recovered by Israeli forces during the war.
In response, Hamas initially announced it would hand over the bodies of missing hostages found in tunnels in the Gaza Strip to Israel on Tuesday. However, Hamas’s militant group Al-Qassam Brigades later announced that the planned extradition would be postponed, citing Israel’s violation of the ceasefire.
Late Tuesday, al-Qassam issued a statement saying it had recovered the bodies of two Israeli hostages, Amiram Cooper and Sahar Baruch, during a search operation in Gaza.
Hamas said Prime Minister Netanyahu was looking for an excuse to recuse himself from Israel’s obligations.
Under ceasefire terms, Hamas released all living hostages in exchange for approximately 2,000 Palestinian convicts and wartime detainees, while Israel withdrew its troops and halted its attacks.
search for hostage bodies
Hamas also agreed to hand over the remains of all deceased hostages that have not yet been recovered, but said it would take time to find and recover the bodies in the ruins of Gaza. Israel says the militants have access to the remains of most of the hostages.
The issue has been one of the main sticking points in the ceasefire, and President Trump has said he is monitoring it closely. He has touted the ceasefire and hostage and prisoner exchange agreements as one of the major foreign policy achievements of his second term, and he and his top aides have sought to preserve the ceasefire.
The White House did not immediately respond to questions about whether Israel notified the United States before carrying out its attack on Gaza.
In Gaza City, an Israeli airstrike hit a residential building near Shifa Hospital, the largest operating hospital in northern Gaza, killing four people. The hospital itself was also damaged, according to Gaza officials, witnesses and Hamas media. Two people were injured in an attack on a tent in Zawaida, central Gaza, local health authorities said.
The search for the hostage bodies has intensified in recent days after heavy equipment arrived from Egypt. On Tuesday, bulldozers worked in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip and in Nuseyrat further north, with Hamas fighters deployed around the bulldozers.
Some of the bodies are believed to be in a network of Hamas tunnels running underground in Gaza.
Witnesses in Khan Younis said Egyptian military teams, working with armed Hamas fighters, were digging deep near the Qatari-funded Hamad residential city west of Khan Younis to reach the tunnel shaft.
Images from Reuters showed the excavation site more than a dozen meters below the surface, with Hamas members appearing to be searching for bodies at the bottom of a ditch next to the tunnel opening.
Gaza health authorities say 68,000 people have been confirmed dead in Israeli airstrikes, with thousands more missing. Israel began the war after Hamas-led fighters attacked southern Israel, killing 1,200 people and returning 251 hostages to Gaza.
