Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday he had ordered the military to immediately carry out “powerful strikes” in Gaza, and Hamas responded by saying it would delay the release of a hostage’s body, putting new pressure on the tenuous US-brokered ceasefire.
Associated Press reporters and witnesses heard tank shots and saw explosions in several parts of Gaza, including Gaza City and Deir al-Balah.
The order for the strikes came after an Israeli official said Hamas had fired on its forces in southern Gaza and after the Palestinian militant group handed over body parts on Monday that Israel said were partial remains of a hostage recovered earlier in the war.
Netanyahu called the return of these body parts a “clear violation” of the ceasefire agreement, which requires Hamas to return the remaining hostages in Gaza as soon as possible.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said in a statement that Hamas would pay a “heavy price for attacking Israeli soldiers in Gaza and for violating the agreement on the return of deceased hostages.” Israel notified the United States before launching the strikes on Tuesday, according to a U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.
An AP reporter in the central Gaza city of Deir al-Balah heard tank fire from an area controlled by the Israeli army. And in Gaza City, two health officials reported attacks, including near Shifa hospital.
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Hours earlier, Israeli troops came under fire in the southern city of Rafah and returned fire, according to an Israeli military official who spoke on condition of anonymity because there has not yet been an official announcement.
Fragile ceasefire holds until now despite evidence
The ceasefire that began on October 10 has largely held despite at least two previous outbreaks of violence.
On October 19, Israel said two Israeli soldiers were killed by Hamas fire. Israel responded with a series of attacks that killed more than 40 Palestinians, according to local health officials. And over the weekend, Israel carried out an airstrike against what it said were Islamic Jihad militants planning an attack, wounding several people.
There are still 13 hostage bodies in Gaza. Hamas said on Tuesday it had recovered the body of a hostage, but after Israel announced plans to attack Gaza, Hamas said in a statement it would delay the handover.
An Associated Press cameraman in Khan Younis on Tuesday witnessed what appeared to be a white body bag being carried out of a tunnel by several men, including some masked militants, and then carried to an ambulance. It was not immediately clear what was in the bag.
The slow return of the hostages’ bodies poses a challenge to the implementation of the next stages of the ceasefire, which will address even thornier issues, such as disarming Hamas, deploying an international security force in Gaza and deciding who will govern the territory.
Hamas has said it is struggling to locate the bodies amid the vast destruction in Gaza, while Israel has accused the militant group of deliberately delaying their return.
Over the weekend, Egypt deployed a team of experts and heavy equipment to help search for the bodies of the remaining hostages. That work continued Tuesday in Khan Younis and Nuseirat.
An Arab official involved in negotiating the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas said talks were underway with both sides to try to prevent the truce from collapsing. “Both sides violated the agreement, but there was no significant breach,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.
The official said the violations included delays in the delivery of bodies, the failure to open the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt, delays in the evacuation of patients out of Gaza, the limited expansion of aid deliveries and “minor skirmishes” on the line separating Israeli troops from the rest of Gaza.
The remains returned overnight have been identified as belonging to Ofir Tzarfati, Netanyahu’s office said.
Tzarfati was kidnapped at the Nova music festival during the Hamas-led attack on Israel on October 7, 2023 that started the war. In total, the militants killed about 1,200 people that day, mostly civilians, and took 251 hostages.
Tzarfati was killed in captivity and his body was recovered by Israeli troops in November 2023. In March 2024, his family received additional remains for burial.
Tzarfati’s family said in a statement that this is the third time “we have been forced to open Ophir’s grave and rebury our son.”
This is the second time since the ceasefire delivered by Hamas has been problematic. Israel said one of the bodies released by Hamas in the first week of the ceasefire belonged to an unidentified Palestinian.
During a previous ceasefire in February 2025, Hamas said it handed over the bodies of three hostages, Shiri Bibas and her two children, but evidence showed that one of the returned bodies was identified as a Palestinian woman. Shiri Bibas’ body was returned a day later.
In exchange for the 15 dead hostages returned from Gaza since the ceasefire began, Israel has returned 195 Palestinian bodies to Gaza. The last 20 living hostages were returned to Israel at the start of the ceasefire and, in return, Israel freed some 2,000 Palestinian prisoners.
More than 68,500 Palestinians have died in the two years of war in Gaza, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its count. The ministry maintains detailed records of victims that are generally considered reliable by UN agencies and independent experts. Israel has questioned them without paying its own price.
Associated Press writers Josef Federman and Renata Brito in Jerusalem, Menelaos Hadjicostis in Nicosia, Cyprus, Samy Magdy in Cairo, Sam Mednick in Rome and Melanie Lidman in Tel Aviv, Israel, contributed to this report.
