Israel struck Hamas targets in Gaza after a week-long ceasefire with the terror group ended on Friday. Palestinians in the south of the strip said they had been warned to flee towards the border with Egypt.
Explosions were heard throughout the Gaza Strip and air-raid sirens sounded in southern Israel, piercing a relative silence that had fallen over the area in recent days during a tenuous, temporary truce.
It came as reports claimed that Israel is planning for a long war against Hamas aimed at killing the group’s top three leaders, Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Deif and Marwan Issa, and destroying its ability to govern in Gaza.
Israeli troops stationed in northern Gaza are due to begin pushing into the south of the territory imminently, the Financial Times reported, citing several unnamed Israeli officials.
As part of its strategy to mitigate criticism over the high civilian death toll, the Israeli military on Friday morning published a map online dividing the 140-square-mile Gaza Strip into hundreds of blocks.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it would announce the number of each block before targeting as a way to alert people in those areas to evacuate.
At least 54 people have been killed in just a few hours since Israeli strikes resumed early Friday morning, according to the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza. The total Palestinian death toll now stands at more than 15,000.
Hamas officials have claimed they “seriously sought, and are still seeking a truce, even with the return of the Israeli aggression”.
“The solution is not to have a truce,” said Hamas spokesman Osama Hamdan. “The real solution is to find mechanisms to put an end to Israeli occupation.”
The foreign ministry of Qatar, which brokered the initial pause in fighting, said that it “expresses its deep regret at the resumption of the Israeli aggression against Gaza”.
Talks are continuing about the possibility of resuming the temporary truce, though “the continued bombing of the Gaza Strip in the first hours after the end of the pause complicates mediation efforts and exacerbates the humanitarian catastrophe.”
Hamas has said that it offered to hand over more hostages and the bodies of those who they say died from Israeli air strikes in Gaza, but that Israel refused.
The terrorist group also said specifically that they even offered to hand over the bodies of the three members of the Bibas family that were killed by Israeli fire, including the youngest hostage, a 10-month-old baby.
Israel, on the other hand, has said that Hamas is refusing to release further civilian female hostages, although the group previously insisted there were no more such hostages to return.
As hostilities resumed on Friday, Volker Türk, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said: “The resumption of hostilities in Gaza is catastrophic.
“Recent comments by Israeli political and military leaders indicating that they are planning to expand and intensify the military offensive are very troubling,” he said. “The situation is beyond crisis point.”
