Above photo: (A man mourns those killed in overnight deadly Israeli strikes on Gaza on 18 March 2025 MEE/Mohammed al-Hajjar.
And Breaking Truce.
Hospitals are overwhelmed with the dead and wounded as Israeli jets bomb homes and schools across the enclave.
Israel killed more than 400 Palestinians, including over 100 children, in one of the bloodiest bombardments of the Gaza Strip early on Tuesday, unilaterally ending its ceasefire with Hamas.
Air strikes began hitting all five Gaza municipalities from north to south at around 3am local time (12am GMT) on the 18th day of the holy month of Ramadan.
Footage broadcast by Al Jazeera showed children and babies among those killed and wounded.
At least 413 people were killed and 660 wounded, according to the Palestinian health ministry.
The spokesperson of the Gaza civil defence said at least 130 children and dozens of women were killed in the “massacres”.
Yosri al-Ghar, a survivor of the overnight bombardment, said the air strikes killed his pregnant sister, her husband and three of their children. Their fourth child is in serious condition.
He described the area as once being considered safe, far from the boundary, where life had been normal.
“The strike was direct, with no warnings,” Ghar told Middle East Eye outside the war-battered Nasser hospital in Khan Younis.
“It was a clear targeting of civilians, including children. The attack was absolutely barbaric.”
He expressed deep frustration over the lack of global response.
“There’s no world, no Arab world, or even Islamic world, speaking out. If a kitten were killed, the world would have protested, but instead, the silence is deafening.”
Another Palestinian in Gaza, Basma Arif al-Nshalseh, similarly deplored how any response from the world to Israel’s assault was not “visible to the sorrowful and miserable people of Gaza”.
“Where are the Muslims, where are the believers in this holy month, where are they? God is sufficient,” she cried out.
Nshalseh said strikes began raining down as she and other Palestinians prepared for suhoor, a meal eaten before the start of a fasting day.
“We were wondering where they were striking, and then we realised we were the targets, our children, our women,” she told MEE.
“My sister’s children were martyred, all three of them,” she added tearfully. Several members of Nshalseh’s family were also killed by Israel on Tuesday, including her daughter and son-in-law.
“We have been suffering for a year and a half, living in tents, displaced alongside our young, and the flies have eaten us and the bugs have bitten us, where is the ceasefire?”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he has instructed the military to take “strong action” against Hamas in Gaza, accusing the group of refusing to release captives and rejecting all ceasefire proposals.
“Israel will, from now on, act against Hamas with increasing military strength,” the prime minister’s office said in a statement.
White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt told Fox News that US President Donald Trump’s administration was consulted by Israel prior to carrying out the strikes.
“The Trump administration and the White House were consulted by the Israelis on their attacks on Gaza tonight and as President Trump has made clear to Hamas, the Houthis, Iran – all those who seek to terrorise not just Israel but the United States of America will see a price to pay,” Leavitt said.
“All hell will break loose and all of the terrorists in the Middle East – the Houthis, Hezbollah, Hamas, Iranian-backed terror proxies and Iran themselves – should take President Trump very seriously when he says he is not afraid to stand for law-abiding people.”
The Israeli military said it is prepared to continue attacks on Gaza for as long as needed and would expand the campaign beyond air strikes.
It later issued displacement orders from vast areas of the Gaza Strip, a move that often precedes brutal ground attacks.
The military described the attacks as having targeted Hamas commanders and infrastructure, but footage and local reports indicate that scores of civilians had been killed and wounded.
Israeli strikes have killed at least 205 Palestinians, including many children, across the Gaza Strip on Tuesday
Footage shared by local journalists from various locations in Gaza shows medics and Palestinians rushing injured and deceased children to hospitals pic.twitter.com/4zTwlv8q3c
— Middle East Eye (@MiddleEastEye) March 18, 2025
Reacting to the air strikes, Hamas said in a statement that Israel had resumed its “genocidal war against defenceless civilians in the Gaza Strip.”
“Netanyahu and his extremist government have decided to overturn the ceasefire agreement, exposing the [Israeli] prisoners in Gaza to an unknown fate,” Hamas said on Tuesday morning.
“We demand that the mediators hold Netanyahu and the Zionist occupation fully responsible for violating and overturning the agreement.”
It called on the Arab League and Organisation of Islamic Cooperation to “assume their historical responsibility in supporting the steadfastness and valiant resistance of our Palestinian people, and in breaking the unjust siege imposed on the Gaza Strip.”
It also called on the UN to “convene urgently to adopt a resolution obligating the occupation to halt its aggression and abide by Resolution 2735, which calls for an end to the aggression and withdrawal from the entire Gaza Strip.”
Mohammad al-Shaer, whose cousin was killed in the overnight strikes, wondered where was the solidarity for those in Gaza.
“My wife and my daughters are wounded. We woke up this depressing night, more than 342 martyred. Until now, the numbers are still rising.
“Where is the solidarity in this vicious war, that has been going on for 16 years, where we are killed and starved, and stripped and no one is responding?” he said.
Shaer believes that what is happening is a result of betrayal from the Arab and Muslim world, adding: “We as Palestinians say there is no one but God, that’s all.”
In his message to the world, he urges it to wake up to the violence brought upon the people of Gaza.
“We are asking our Arab brothers to wake up. We are dying every day, do you want us to be wiped out? We are more than 2.5 million in the Gaza Strip, do you want us to become a million? Do you want the policy of displacement to occur? Who are you waiting for?”
Countries including Turkey, Iran and Egypt, have condemned the attacks and issued calls for a ceasefire.
Egypt’s foreign ministry spokesperson denounced the assault as “blatant violation” of the ceasefire deal and a “dangerous escalation”.
Meanwhile, Turkey’s foreign ministry said the renewed attacks marked a new phase in “genocide”.
UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy described the attacks as a “breach of international law,” however Downing Street subsequently rowed back on these comments saying that Israel’s actions in Gaza are at a “clear risk” of breach.
Previous Ceasefire Violations
The fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, which came into effect on 19 January, was planned to include three phases.
The first phase, which ended at the beginning of March, resulted in the release of 33 Israeli and five Thai captives by Hamas in exchange for the release of some 1,700 Palestinian captives held in Israeli prisons.
The two sides were scheduled to meet on the 16th day of the deal to negotiate the terms of the second phase, but Israel never sent a delegation to the talks.
Israel, backed by the US, has sought an extension of phase I of the deal, while Hamas has said the ceasefire should move to phase II.
The broad outline of the second phase, the details of which have not yet been agreed, is for all Israeli captives to be released in return for a total withdrawal from Gaza.
Israeli officials have long maintained that their forces will not withdraw from the enclave unless Hamas’ military and governance capabilities are completely removed.
A plan for the governance of post-war Gaza would have been discussed in the second and third phases.
The third phase was expected to involve the return of the bodies of Israeli captives still held in Gaza and the announcement of a three to five-year reconstruction plan for the enclave overseen by international actors.
Now, 59 Israeli captives remain in Gaza. Israel’s Channel 12, citing an Israeli official, reported on 3 March that the government had set a deadline 10 days from then for Hamas to release the remaining captives in Gaza before a return to fighting.
The Arab League on 4 March endorsed a $53bn five-year plan for Gaza reconstruction, proposed by Egypt, which seeks to redevelop the enclave without displacing its population.
The Arab plan came as a counter-proposal to Trump’s declaration in February that he planned to take over the enclave and turn it into a tourism hub, while displacing its population to other countries, a suggestion decried by the international community as tantamount to ethnic cleansing.
The Arab plan has been backed by the UK, France, Italy and Germany.
Israel has already breached the ceasefire on numerous occasions prior to Tuesday’s onslaught.
It continued its deadly attacks on Gaza after the truce came into effect, killing more than 155 Palestinians across Gaza.
It also violated key aspects of the agreement by delaying the return of displaced Palestinians to northern Gaza, hindering the flow of humanitarian aid, allowing far fewer trucks to enter than the agreed 600 daily, and blocking the entry of mobile homes, tents, and heavy machinery needed to clear rubble.
The Israeli army has also refused to withdraw from the Philadelphi corridor, the buffer zone along Gaza’s southern border with Egypt, in breach of the agreement’s terms to withdraw by the 50th day of the deal.
Israel blocked all aid entering Gaza following the end of phase I of the agreement on 2 March, and then announced that it cut off electricity supplies to the enclave in measures denounced by UN experts as a form of weaponisation of starvation, a war crime under international law.