The Israeli military said on Sunday that air force fighter jets carried out air strikes in Gaza’s Rafah area to remove a threat after “terrorists” opened fire on troops.
It said the militants’ actions blatantly “violated” the ceasefire agreement, adding that the military would respond firmly.
Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu has instructed Israel’s security chiefs to “take firm action against terror targets in the Gaza Strip” after attacks in Rafah on Sunday.
Mr Netanyahu issued the order during a meeting with defence minister Israel Katz and the heads of the Shin Bet, the domestic security agency, and the Mossad (foreign intelligence), the office said.
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The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) reported that Palestinian militants fired RPGs and sniper rounds at troops operating in the Rafah area of southern Gaza. In response, the IDF said it carried out a series of air strikes on “terror targets” in the enclave.
A senior Hamas official said the Palestinian militant group remains committed to the ceasefire, which he accused Israel of repeatedly violating.
Israel identified the body of a deceased hostage on Sunday, after Hamas handed over two bodies of what the militant group said were deceased hostages to the Red Cross late on Saturday.
Mr Netanyahu said the body was identified as Ronen Engel. The second body was still undergoing identification at Israel’s National Institute of Forensic Medicine.
Mr Engel (54) was killed during the October 7th attack on Kibbutz Nir Oz on the Gaza border. His wife, Karina, and two of his three children were kidnapped and released in a ceasefire in November 2023.
Elsewhere, Israel threatened to keep the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt closed “until further notice”.
The statement by Mr Netanyahu’s office said reopening Rafah would depend on how Hamas fulfilled its ceasefire role of returning the remains of all 28 deceased hostages.
Hamas has handed over the remains of 11 identified hostages. Israel has returned the bodies of 135 Palestinians to Gaza.
The handover of remains is among key points – along with aid deliveries into Gaza and the devastated territory’s future – in the ceasefire process meant to end two years of war.
The Rafah crossing is the only one that was not controlled by Israel before the war. It has been closed since May 2024, when Israel took control of the Gaza side.
A fully reopened crossing would make it easier for Palestinians to seek medical treatment, travel or visit family in Egypt, home to tens of thousands of Palestinians.
Hamas said discussions were under way with mediators on arrangements for launching negotiations on the second phase of Donald Trump’s plan to end the war in Gaza.
Hazem Kassem, a spokesman for Hamas, said in a statement late on Saturday that the second phase negotiations “require national consensus”.
He said Hamas had begun discussions to solidify their positions on the issues but did not provide further details.
According to Mr Trump’s plan, the second phase of negotiations include disarming Hamas and the establishment of an international-backed authority to run the embattled Gaza Strip.
Mr Kassem reiterated that the group would not be part of the ruling authority in a postwar Gaza. Hamas-run government bodies in the Gaza Strip are running day-to-day affairs to avoid a power vacuum, he said.
Mr Kassem called for a prompt establishment of the Community Support Committee, a body of Palestinian technocrats, to run the day-to-day affairs.
The US state department said on Saturday that it had credible reports of an imminent planned attack by Hamas against residents of Gaza.
“This planned attack against Palestinian civilians would constitute a direct and grave violation of the ceasefire agreement and undermine the significant progress achieved through mediation efforts,” it said in a statement.
There was no immediate Hamas comment on the state department statement, but the interior ministry, which is part of the Hamas-run government, has said its forces were working to restore law and order across areas Israel’s military withdrew from following the ceasefire.
Hamas-led fighters clashed with at least two armed groups in eastern Gaza City that Hamas alleges are involved in looting aid and collaborating with Israel. They executed a handful of suspects in public, in widely condemned street killings.
Israel’s war in Gaza has killed more than 68,000 Palestinians, according to the health ministry, which is part of the Hamas-run government in the territory. Its figures are seen as a reliable estimate of wartime deaths by UN agencies and many independent experts.
Israel has disputed them without providing its own toll.
Thousands more people are missing, according to the Red Cross.
Hamas-led militants killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted 251 people in the attack on southern Israel that sparked the war on October 7th, 2023. – AP
