Israel-Hamas war: Israeli strikes kill over 184 people in Gaza after cease-fire ends

After talks to extend a week-old truce with Hamas collapsed on Friday, Israeli airstrikes targeting houses and buildings in the Gaza Strip resulted in the death of at least 184 people, according to the Health Ministry in the region.

Israel said its ground, air and naval forces struck more than 200 “terror targets” in Gaza. By Friday evening, health officials in the coastal strip said Israeli strikes had killed 184 people, wounded at least 589 others and hit more than 20 houses.

Cease-fire mediator Qatar said efforts are ongoing to renew the truce, which saw Israel pause most military activity in Gaza and release 300 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for terrorists freeing over 100 hostages held in Gaza.

The warring sides blamed the other for the truce collapse by rejecting terms to extend the daily release of hostages held by militants in exchange for Palestinians held in Israeli jails.

The conflict has left over three-quarters of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents homeless, leading to a humanitarian crisis marked by shortages of food, water, and other essential supplies. Palestinian authorities reported that no aid trucks entered Gaza from Egypt on Friday.

Before the truce, the weeks of Israeli bombardment and ground campaigns in Gaza they have resulted in more than 13,300 Palestinian casualties, with roughly two-thirds being women and minors, as per the Health Ministry in Hamas-ruled Gaza. The toll is likely higher, and around 1,200 Israelis were reported killed, primarily during Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel that triggered the conflict.

The United Nations said the fighting would worsen an extreme humanitarian emergency. “Hell on Earth has returned to Gaza,” said Jens Laerke, spokesperson for the U.N. humanitarian office in Geneva.

“Today, in a matter of hours, scores were reportedly killed and injured. Families were told to evacuate, again. Hopes were dashed,” said U.N. aid chief Martin Griffiths, adding that children, women and men of Gaza had “nowhere safe to go and very little to survive on.”

A pause that started on Nov. 24 had been extended twice and Israel had said it could continue as long as Hamas released 10 hostages each day. But after seven days during which women, children and foreign hostages were freed, mediators failed to find a formula to release more.

Israel accused Hamas of refusing to release all the women it held. A Palestinian official said the breakdown occurred over female Israeli soldiers.

Israel has sworn to annihilate Hamas after an Oct. 7 rampage in which it says the militant group killed 1,200 people and took 240 hostage.

Israeli assaults since have laid waste much of Gaza, ruled by Hamas since 2007. Palestinian health authorities deemed reliable by the United Nations say over 15,000 Gazans have been killed and thousands are missing.

QATAR SAYS NEGOTIATIONS CONTINUING

Qatar, which has played a central mediating role, said negotiations were still going on with Israelis and Palestinians to restore the truce. Still, Israel’s renewed bombardment of Gaza had complicated matters.

An Israeli official in Washington said it was a “very high priority” to get as many hostages released as possible.

“And for that, under agreed terms, Israel is willing to give additional pauses,” the official said, while adding: “We can negotiate while we still fight.”

In the north of Gaza, previously the main war zone, huge plumes of smoke rose above the ruins. Gunfire and explosions rang out above the sound of barking dogs.

Residents and officials from Hamas said its fighters armed with rocket-propelled grenades battled Israeli troops and tanks in Gaza City’s Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood in the north.

Sirens blared across southern Israel as militants fired rockets from the coastal enclave into towns. Hamas said it had targeted Tel Aviv, but there were no reports of casualties or damage there.

Casualties were reported in southern Lebanon, another flashpoint of conflict for Israel. A Lebanese official said Israeli shelling killed three people on Friday. The Iran-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah, a Hamas ally, said it had carried out several attacks on Israeli military positions at the border.

The Israeli army said its artillery struck sources of fire from Lebanon and air defences had intercepted two launches.

U.S. AND HAMAS TRADE ACCUSATIONS

The United States blamed Hamas for the renewed fighting, saying it had failed to produce a new list of hostages to release.

U.S. Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin said Washington was working diplomatically to restore the truce.

“We’re going to continue to work with Israel and Egypt and Qatar on efforts to re-implement the pause,” he told a news conference in California while blaming Hamas for failing to meet conditions on hostages and for an attack in Jerusalem.

Democratic U.S. Senator Mark Warner, who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee, said Washington should be putting pressure on Israel, telling Reuters:

“We should be pushing Israel to realize this is not only a military conflict, but it is a conflict for hearts and minds of people in the world and people in the United States.”

Hamas accused Washington of giving the green light for an Israeli “war of genocide and ethnic cleansing.”

“Today, it brazenly repeats the Zionist lies, which hold Hamas responsible for resuming the war and not extending the humanitarian truce,” it said in a statement.

The Palestinian Red Crescent said Israeli forces had stopped all deliveries of aid into Gaza through the Rafah border crossing with Egypt.

With inputs from agencies.