Israel Resumes Bombing of Gaza
HAVANA TIMES – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday, October 28th, ordered his army to carry out “immediate and forceful attacks” on the Gaza Strip. Soon after that, Arab media reported that bombings had resumed over Gaza City—almost entirely in ruins—in the north of that Palestinian territory.
This marks Israel’s second military offensive since a ceasefire was established on October 11 with the Palestinian militia Hamas, which has been accused of breaking that fragile agreement with attacks on Israeli soldiers in the Rafah area, in the south of the Strip.
The Gaza government’s media office accused Israel of committing numerous violations of the ceasefire in less than three weeks, which have resulted in the deaths of dozens of Palestinians.
The ceasefire had allowed for the exchange of surviving hostages and the remains of those who died in Hamas captivity during two years of war, in return for the release of Palestinian prisoners and Israel’s authorization for hundreds of trucks loaded with humanitarian aid to enter Gaza’s starving population.
Earlier on Tuesday the 28th, the Israeli government accused Hamas of having returned the remains of a hostage whose body parts had already been recovered and buried at the beginning of the current conflict, in late 2023—an act that would constitute another violation of the agreement that halted hostilities in early October.
For its part, Hamas announced that it was postponing the return of additional hostage remains—13 people are still unaccounted for, some possibly buried under the rubble left by bombings—given Israel’s renewed attacks.
During the ceasefire period, Israel says it continued destroying tunnels and other structures used by Palestinian fighters, while Hamas consolidated control over areas cleared of Israeli troops, including public executions of alleged collaborators with the occupying forces.
As of now, there have been no reactions to the new Israeli airstrikes from the mediators of the ceasefire agreement reached in October—namely, the governments of Egypt, the United States, Qatar, and Turkey—nor from the United Nations Secretary-General.
The current conflict erupted after Hamas attacked southern Israel on October 7, 2023, killing 1,139 people and taking 251 hostages. The assault triggered a large-scale Israeli military response.
Nearly 70,000 Palestinians have been killed and around 170,000 injured—more than 400 Israeli soldiers have also died—and most of Gaza’s infrastructure, home to 2.2 million people, has been destroyed, leaving civilians in conditions of hunger, disease, and destitution.
Speaking from Cape Town, South Africa, where she attended the annual “Nelson Mandela” conference, United Nations Special Rapporteur for the Occupied Palestinian Territories Francesca Albanese stated that despite the three-week truce, Israel continues to kill, starve, and displace the people of Gaza.
“The ceasefire declared on October 11 did not stop the assault on Gaza,” Albanese affirmed.
Meanwhile, Navi Pillay, president of the Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory—including East Jerusalem—and Israel, said on Tuesday that the ceasefire and the release of hostages offered “a glimmer of hope.”
However, she warned before the UN General Assembly’s Third Committee, “These developments cannot undo the devastation that has occurred. Tens of thousands of lives have been lost, entire communities have been wiped out, and Gaza has been rendered virtually uninhabitable.”
First published in Spanish by IPS and translated and posted in English by Havana Times.