Israeli strikes kill 33 people in Gaza, first responders say, as Trump insists ceasefire will hold

At least 33 Palestinians were killed in a wave of Israeli attacks in Gaza on Tuesday evening, the Hamas-run Civil Protection Agency and hospitals said.

Israel carried out the attacks in response to what it said were Hamas violations of the US-brokered ceasefire.

Israel’s defense minister accused Hamas of an attack in southern Gaza that killed an Israeli soldier on Tuesday and of violating conditions for the return of the bodies of deceased hostages. Hamas claimed it had “no connection” to the attack and insisted it had adhered to the ceasefire.

US President Donald Trump claimed that “nothing” would jeopardize the ceasefire, but added that Israel should “strike back” if its soldiers were targeted.

According to witnesses and first responders, the Israeli strikes hit homes, schools and residential blocks in Gaza City and Beit Lahia in northern Gaza, Bureij and Nuseirat in the center, and Khan Younis in the south.

In Gaza City, witnesses described seeing “pillars of fire and smoke” rising into the sky as explosions shook several residential areas.

A Civil Protection spokesman told the BBC early on Wednesday that 14 people were killed in the city, including three women and a man who were pulled from the rubble of the al-Banna family home in the southern neighborhood of Sabra.

In the Bureij urban refugee camp, five members of the Abu Sharar family were killed in an attack on their home in the Block 7 area, he said.

And in Khan Younis, another five people were killed when planes attacked a vehicle on a road northwest of the city, he added.

The Civil Protection spokesman said rescue teams were “working in extremely difficult conditions” and he feared the death toll would rise as some missing people were believed to be trapped under rubble.

A brief statement from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office on Tuesday evening said he had ordered the army to carry out “strong attacks” in Gaza, but did not specify the reasons.

However, his defense minister said Hamas had crossed “a bright red line” by launching an attack on Israeli soldiers in Gaza on Tuesday.

“Hamas will pay many times over for attacking the soldiers and for violating the agreement to return the fallen hostages,” Katz warned.

An Israeli military official said the attack took place “east of the Yellow Line,” which demarcates Israeli-controlled territory within Gaza under the ceasefire.

On Wednesday morning, the Israeli army announced that a reservist soldier, Master Sergeant Yona Efraim Feldbaum, had been killed.

Israeli media said he was part of a military technical team operating in the southern city of Rafah when it was ambushed.

Gunmen reportedly emerged from an underground tunnel system and opened fire on the soldiers, including with rocket-propelled grenades.

Hamas released a statement denying that its fighters had attacked Israeli forces and condemning the Israeli attacks.

“Hamas confirms that it has no connection with the Rafah shooting incident and reaffirms its commitment to the ceasefire,” the report said.

‘The criminal bombardment carried out by the fascist occupation [Israeli] military in areas of the Gaza Strip represents a blatant violation of the ceasefire agreement.”

The group’s military wing, meanwhile, said it would delay the return of a hostage’s body it recovered on Tuesday because of what it called Israeli “violations.”

The US played down concerns that hostilities could resume.

Aboard Air Force One, President Trump told reporters, “As I understand it, they killed an Israeli soldier. So the Israelis struck back and they had to strike back.”

“Nothing will jeopardize the ceasefire,” he said. “You have to understand that Hamas is a very small part of peace in the Middle East, and they have to behave.”

Vice President JD Vance previously said the ceasefire was holding despite what he described as “minor skirmishes” between the two sides.

On Tuesday afternoon, Israel’s prime minister had vowed to take unspecified “steps” against Hamas after the group the day before handed over a coffin containing human remains that did not belong to any of the 13 deceased hostages still in Gaza.

Netanyahu’s office said forensic tests showed they belonged to Ofir Tzarfati, an Israeli hostage whose body was recovered by Israeli forces in Gaza in late 2023, and that this constituted a “clear violation” of the ceasefire.

The Israeli military also released drone footage on Monday showing Hamas operatives “removing body remains from a structure that had been prepared in advance and burying them nearby” in eastern Gaza City.

“Shortly afterwards,” it added, “the agents called in representatives of the Red Cross and staged a false spectacle of the discovery of the body of a deceased hostage.”

Hamas rejected what it called the “baseless accusations” and accused Israel of “trying to create false pretexts in preparation for taking new aggressive steps.”

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) later condemned what it called the “fake recovery,” saying it had been on the scene “at the request of Hamas” and “in good faith.”

It continued: “The ICRC team at this location was not aware that a deceased person had been located there prior to their arrival, as can be seen in the footage – generally our role as a neutral intermediary does not include exhuming the bodies of the deceased.

“Our team merely observed what appeared to be the recovery of remains, without prior knowledge of the circumstances leading up to it.

“It is unacceptable that there is a sham recovery when so much depends on compliance with this agreement and when so many families are still anxiously awaiting news about their loved ones.”

The ceasefire agreement, brokered by the US, Egypt, Qatar and Turkey, should implement the first phase of Trump’s 20-point peace plan for Gaza.

It said Hamas would return its 48 living and deceased hostages within 72 hours after the ceasefire took effect on October 10.

All twenty surviving Israeli hostages were released on October 13 in exchange for 250 Palestinian prisoners and 1,718 Gaza detainees.

Israel has also handed over the bodies of 195 Palestinians in exchange for the bodies of the 13 Israeli hostages returned by Hamas so far, along with those of two foreign hostages – one of them Thai and the other Nepali.

Eleven of the dead hostages still in Gaza are Israelis, one is Tanzanian and one is Thai.

On Saturday, Hamas’s chief negotiator Khalil al-Hayya said the group faced challenges because Israeli forces had “changed the terrain of Gaza.” He also said that “some of those who buried the bodies were martyred or do not remember where they buried them.”

However, the Israeli government insists that Hamas knows the locations of all the bodies.

All but one of the dead hostages still in Gaza were among the 251 people kidnapped during the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, in which about 1,200 other people were killed.

Israel responded by launching a military campaign in Gaza, killing more than 68,530 people in the area, according to the Hamas-led Health Ministry.