By Jana Choukeir, Emily Rose and Nidal al-Mughrabi
CAIRO/JERUSALEM (Reuters) -Israel said on Wednesday it remains committed to the U.S.-backed ceasefire in Gaza, despite its retaliation for the death of an Israeli soldier with day-long bombardment that Gaza health authorities said killed 104 people.
Even as the military affirmed it still intended to uphold the truce in the Palestinian enclave, it announced it had carried out another airstrike in the north of Gaza where it said weapons had been stored. Medics said two people were killed in that attack.
The killing of an Israeli soldier in Gaza on Tuesday has triggered the worst escalation there since the ceasefire brokered by U.S. President Donald Trump came into effect on October 10 after two years of war triggered by deadly Hamas-led attacks on Israel.
Israel says the soldier was killed in an attack by gunmen on territory within the “yellow line” where its troops withdrew under the truce. Hamas has rejected the accusation.
Israel described Wednesday’s attack as a targeted strike near Beit Lahia in the north of the strip, where it said weapons had been stored. It said it would continue to uphold the ceasefire agreement while responding firmly to any violation.
“We want to ensure that the goal that President Trump and we agreed on of disarming Hamas and demilitarizing Gaza is ultimately achieved,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said later on Wednesday during a visit to a military facility in southern Israel where U.S. troops are monitoring the truce.
“There is a real effort here in cooperation, with security being maintained in our own hands,” Netanyahu said, according to a statement released by his office.
AIRSTRIKES TARGETED HAMAS COMMANDER, ISRAEL SAYS
In response to the soldier’s death, the military launched what it described as strikes targeting dozens of Hamas militants across the enclave, as well as weapons depots and tunnels belonging to the group.
It named 24 militant targets, including one it described as a Hamas commander who took part in an attack on a kibbutz during the October 7, 2023, assault on southern Israel that ignited the war.
The Gaza health ministry said 46 children and 20 women were among the 104 people killed in the airstrikes.
The Hamas-run Gaza government media office issued a statement saying Israel’s list of targets was a product of a “systematic campaign of misinformation, forgery, and lies aimed at distorting the truth and covering up its ongoing crimes against civilians.”
In Nusseirat in the central Gaza Strip, neighbours said the entire Abu Dalal family had been wiped out in an airstrike that flattened their home overnight.
A boy in a wheelchair wailed as the family’s bodies in white plastic body bags were loaded into the back of a flatbed truck. Crowds followed as the bodies were driven through the streets to a cemetery.
Despite the bombardments, Trump said the ceasefire was not at risk.
“As I understand it, they took out an Israeli soldier,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One. “So the Israelis hit back and they should hit back. When that happens, they should hit back,” he added.
“Nothing is going to jeopardise” the ceasefire, Trump said. “You have to understand Hamas is a very small part of peace in the Middle East, and they have to behave.”
He has touted the truce and hostage-prisoner exchange deal as one of the top foreign policy achievements of his second term, and he and his top aides have sought to keep the ceasefire from unravelling.
The latest flare-up has underscored the stumbling blocks to a lasting peace. Key questions of Hamas disarming, further Israeli troop pullbacks and future governance of Gaza remain unresolved.
Qatar’s Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani, who has acted as a mediator, said on Wednesday that the attack on the Israeli soldier and subsequent Israeli airstrikes had been “very disappointing and frustrating for us”.
RESIDENTS DESCRIBE NIGHT OF BOMBARDMENT
Displaced Palestinians feared the truce could fall apart.
“The sounds of explosions and planes made us feel as if war had started again,” Ismail Zayda, 40, living in tents in western Gaza City with his 25-member family, told Reuters via a chat app.
Under the accord, Hamas released all living hostages in return for nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners and wartime detainees, while Israel pulled back its troops and halted its offensive.
Hamas also agreed to hand over the remains of all dead hostages yet to be recovered, but has said that it will take time to locate and retrieve them. Israel has accused Hamas of violating the ceasefire by stalling in handing over bodies.
(Additional reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt, Kanishka Singh, Maayan Lubell, Marine DelRue, Eleanor Whalley; Writing by Michael Georgy and Matt Spetalnick; Editing by Sharon Singleton, Peter Graff, Cynthia Osterman and Daniel Wallis)
