The wave of deadly airstrikes that shattered the ceasefire in Gaza is “only the beginning,” warned Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday night in a televised address, promising that the new offensive would continue until Israel achieved all of its war aims – destroying Hamas and freeing all hostages held by the militant group. In Washington, a White House spokesperson said Israel had consulted the U.S. administration before carrying out the strikes.
Any further ceasefire negotiations would take place “under fire,” said the Israeli prime minister in his first official communication after Israel launched attacks that killed more than 400 people in the devastated Palestinian territory, in the deadliest single day of violence since the first months of the war in 2023.
“Hamas has already felt the strength of our hand in the past 24 hours. And I want to promise you – and them – this is only the beginning,” Netanyahu told viewers.
In Tel Aviv, anti-Netanyahu demonstrators gathered to call for concrete action to free the remaining hostages held in Gaza after the October 7, 2023 attacks by Palestinian militants. Relatives of Israeli hostages in Gaza have said that the decision to resume fighting could “sacrifice” their loved ones.
Earlier, Israel’s defense minister raised the prospect that the war in Gaza could last many weeks or even months. “Hamas must understand that the rules of the game have changed,” Israel Katz told reporters during a visit to an airbase, adding that “the gates of hell will open, and it will face the full might of the IDF in the air, at sea, and on land” if hostages were not freed.
Airstrikes and artillery fire continued across much of Gaza during the afternoon and into the evening.
The Israeli army has issued evacuation orders for the northernmost and eastern areas of Gaza, suggesting that renewed ground attacks could be launched soon.
Humanitarian agencies still active in Gaza reported that hundreds, possibly thousands, of people are on the move to comply with the Israeli evacuation orders. “There is no resilience. People are in a very weak state, physically and psychologically,” one aid worker in Gaza told the Guardian.
