A weeklong cease-fire in the Gaza Strip collapsed Friday morning after Israel said Hamas had fired rockets toward Israel in the hours before the truce was set to expire, and Israel responded with strikes on the territory.
International mediators said talks were continuing in the hopes of quickly reviving the truce. Hamas’ leadership did not comment on Israel’s announcement or on its own intentions.
But Israel said it was now returning to its plan of forcing Hamas from power in Gaza, saying that Hamas had violated the cease-fire agreement by firing on Israel and failing to release as many hostages as it had promised.
In a statement, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said: “With the return to fighting, we emphasize: The government of Israel is committed to achieving the war aims — freeing our hostages, eliminating Hamas and ensuring that Gaza will never again pose a threat to the residents of Israel.”
A weeklong truce between Israel and Hamas expired at 7 a.m. Friday local time. Mediators had attempted to extend it by at least one more day, hoping to secure another exchange of Israelis held hostage in Gaza for Palestinians detained in Israel.
But early Friday, shortly before the truce was set to end, Israel’s military said on the social media site X, formerly known as Twitter, that it had intercepted a projectile fired from Gaza. Automated rocket alert systems reported that air raid sirens had sounded in several areas of southern Israel, indicating rockets or shells had been fired from the territory.
A person familiar with the negotiations said the efforts to revive the truce were continuing.
Nonetheless, minutes after the 7 a.m. deadline passed, Israel announced that it was restarting operations in Gaza.
Shortly afterward, both the Israeli military and Gaza’s Hamas-run Interior Ministry said that Israel was carrying out strikes across Gaza. In Israel, air raid sirens then sounded regularly in several parts of southern Israel, indicating that Hamas or its allied armed groups in Gaza had fired more rockets or shells toward Israel, following the Israeli strikes.
The fragile halt had given the territory’s 2.2 million civilians a respite and allowed for the release of more than 100 hostages held in Gaza, in exchange for 240 Palestinians held in Israeli jails.
Most of Gaza’s people have been displaced and are experiencing acute shortages of food, water, medicine and fuel amid widespread destruction that has ravaged homes, businesses and infrastructure. The pause allowed more aid to reach the battered enclave than the trickle that had made it in before the truce.
Netanyahu had sworn to resume the war against Hamas, which controls Gaza. Under domestic pressure from his far-right coalition partners, he has held to Israel’s goal of destroying Hamas, despite growing international condemnation over the cost to civilians living in Gaza.
Since Oct. 7, when Hamas led terrorist attacks on Israel that the Israeli government says killed about 1,200 people and resulted in about 240 hostages being taken, Israel has waged a devastating military campaign that Gazan health authorities say has killed more than 13,000 people.
Under the temporary cease-fire agreement that went into effect last Friday, Hamas returned Israeli and dual-national hostages in exchange for Israel’s release of Palestinians held in Israeli prisons.
On both sides, the trade focused on women and children, and officials on both sides said Hamas had few hostages remaining in those categories, while Hamas has said that it would demand a higher price for releasing Israeli men or soldiers of either sex. Under separate talks, Palestinian militants also turned over more than 20 Asian agricultural workers who had also been taken hostage Oct. 7.
Talks in Doha, Qatar, involving the warring parties and with officials from the United States, with Qatar and Egypt acting as intermediaries, reached a four-day cease-fire deal last week, then extended it for two days, and then for an additional day.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders in Israel on Thursday to try to extend the truce, improve conditions for Gaza’s besieged civilians and exert some influence over the expected next phase of Israel’s military offensive. It was his fourth visit to Israel since the Oct. 7 assault.
Having deployed ground forces in northern Gaza and sent most of the population fleeing southward, Israel has signaled that it will invade the now-crowded south, where U.S. and Israeli officials say much of Hamas’ leadership is hunkered down.
At a news conference in Tel Aviv, Israel, on Thursday night local time, Blinken once again defended Israel’s right to wage war, while insisting that the country do more to protect civilians.
“Israel has the right to do everything it can to ensure that the slaughter that Hamas carried out on Oct. 7 can never be repeated,” Blinken said. “Hamas cannot remain in control of Gaza. It cannot retain the capacity to repeat that carnage.”
After meeting with Blinken on Thursday, Netanyahu reiterated that the aim of Israel’s military campaign was to crush Hamas, a quest that Israeli and U.S. officials say remains far from completion.
“We have sworn, I have sworn, to eliminate Hamas,” Netanyahu said. “Nothing will stop us.”