© 2025 WNIJ and WNIU
Northern Public Radio
801 N 1st St.
DeKalb, IL 60115
815-753-9000
Northern Public Radio
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Israel launches renewed strikes in Gaza less than 3 weeks into Trump's ceasefire deal

Hamas members carry a body retrieved from a tunnel in an area north of Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, on Tuesday. Israel accused Hamas of staging its search for the remains of a Gaza hostage body.
Bashar Taleb
/
AFP via Getty Images
Hamas members carry a body retrieved from a tunnel in an area north of Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, on Tuesday. Israel accused Hamas of staging its search for the remains of a Gaza hostage body.

Updated October 28, 2025 at 2:34 PM CDT

The Israeli military began carrying out renewed strikes in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, less than three weeks after President Trump brokered a ceasefire between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas.

The spokesman for Gaza's civil defense agency, Mahmoud Basal, said Israeli airstrikes have targeted neighborhoods in Gaza City. Basal said there were initial reports of dead and wounded in a strike on a house in the Al-Sabra neighborhood in southern Gaza City. Other strikes hit near the Al-Shifa hospital and the Al-Zaitoun neighborhood, he said.

The attacks came as Israel and Hamas traded accusations of violating the ceasefire deal. "Following security consultations, Prime Minister Netanyahu has directed the military to immediately carry out forceful strikes in the Gaza Strip," the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in an online statement.

Netanyahu's announcement came after he met with senior security ministers to discuss a response to what Israel called an attempt by Hamas to stage the return of the partial remains of a hostage whose body the militants were supposed to return under the terms of the ceasefire. Israel had already located most of the remains earlier in the war. Israel released drone footage that it said showed Hamas operatives burying a bag with remains in the ground so that the International Committee of the Red Cross could "find" them. Netanyahu called the move a "clear violation" of the U.S.-negotiated ceasefire.

Hamas said in a statement that Israel's allegations about its "slow response" to returning hostage bodies are "baseless and aimed at misleading public opinion." It said, "The occupation is seeking to fabricate false pretexts in preparation for taking new aggressive steps against our people, in blatant violation of the ceasefire agreement."

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said in a statement that Hamas would "pay a heavy price for attacking" Israeli troops in Gaza and failing to return deceased hostages.

On Oct. 19, the Israeli military carried out a series of airstrikes in Gaza after two of its soldiers were killed in Rafah. After those Israeli strikes, dozens of people, Trump said the ceasefire was still in place.

Hamas said it had "no connection" to the shooting of Israeli soldiers in Rafah. It said it would stick to the ceasefire and called on mediators to "take immediate action" to press Israel to stop its attacks in violation of the agreement.

This is a developing story that may be updated.

Copyright 2025 NPR

NPR's International Desk