Why it matters:
The airstrikes on Gaza, significantly undermine the fragile ceasefire established in January. This escalation jeopardizes peace efforts and captive exchanges, exacerbating the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. The strikes highlight ongoing tensions between Israel and Hamas, threatening regional stability and raising international concerns about human rights and potential war crimes
The big picture:
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he instructed the military to take “strong action” against Hamas in Gaza, hypocritically blaming the group for refusing to release captives and not agreeing to Israel’s proposals on the ceasefire. “Israel will, from now on, act against Hamas with increasing military strength,” the Prime Minister’s Office said in a statement.
What they're saying:
- A senior Hamas official has told the Reuters news agency that the Israeli attacks mean that Israel is unilaterally ending the ceasefire in Gaza that began on January 19.
- Israeli war minister, Israel Katz, said that the “gates of hell” will be opened on Gaza if Hamas does not release all the captives still held in the Palestinian territory.
- Hamas said it holds Israel’s Netanyahu and the “Nazi-Zionist occupation” responsible for the “treacherous” attacks on Gaza.
- Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) said Israel is continuing its “war of extermination” on Gaza after “deliberately sabotaging all efforts to reach a ceasefire."
- PIJ said the renewed attack by Netanyahu and his “bloodthirsty Nazi government” will not give Israel “superiority over the resistance, neither on the ground nor in negotiations”.
- Mouin Rabbani, a non-resident fellow at the Middle East Council on Global Affairs, has told Al Jazeera that it is unclear if the “wave of intense air strikes” is intended as “a single attack or the beginning of a larger campaign”.
- Rabbani added that the “reason we got here” is because Israel has “refused to implement its commitments” under its January ceasefire agreement with Hamas.
- Danny Dannon, Israel’s ambassador to the UN, defended the brutal air strikes on Gaza in a post on X ahead of an upcoming Security Council meeting. “will show no mercy on our enemies. Let me be very clear. Israel will not stop until all of our hostages are back home,” he said in a video alongside the post.
- Haaretz is reporting that private security contractors stationed in the Netzarim Corridor in Gaza are withdrawing from their posts.
- The Palestinian group has called on people of Arab and Islamic nations, and the “free people of the world”, to take to the streets in protest over Israel’s devastating attack on Gaza, which has killed more than 200 people.
Hossein Amiri
