Israel resumed airstrikes on Gaza on Tuesday. Shortly before, the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that he had ordered the military to “immediately carry out forceful strikes” in the Gaza Strip.
According to the Israeli Defense Ministry, the strikes are a response to an attack on Israeli troops near Rafah. Netanyahu’s office did not provide further details but stated that the decision was made following “security consultations” with his Cabinet, which Netanyahu had convened hours earlier, after the Palestinian militant group Hamas returned the remains of an Israeli that did not correspond to any of the remains of the 13 hostages still to be located.
The new offensive follows an exchange of fire that some Israeli media had reported minutes earlier in Rafah, where Israeli forces were attacked on Tuesday. The Times of Israel reported that Israeli soldiers stationed in the southern municipality were assaulted by “terrorist operatives,” without directly linking the attack to Hamas, and added that Israeli troops responded by opening fire on the attackers.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said that “Hamas will pay a heavy price for attacking soldiers in Gaza and for violating the agreement to return the bodies of the hostages.” In a statement from his ministry, Katz referred to “artillery and sniper fire” directed at his soldiers by “Hamas members” in Rafah.
Although the incident occurred in the south of the Gaza Strip, reports from Gaza City — the enclave’s largest urban area — indicated shortly after that airstrikes had resumed there. Footage shared by the Qatari network Al Jazeera shows columns of smoke rising above buildings, though no casualties have yet been reported. Attacks have also been reported in other areas in the north of the Gaza Strip, where Gaza’s capital is located.
