Hundreds of Palestinians are killed as Israel ended the ceasefire and launched a wave of attacks across Gaza, on March 18, 2025. (By Reuters)
The Israeli military has killed at least 342 Palestinians, mostly children and women, throughout the Gaza Strip’s entire expanse during a large-scale violation of Tel Aviv’s ceasefire agreement with the Gaza-based resistance movement Hamas.
Reports said those killed in included at least 77 people in Khan Younis in southern Gaza and at least 20 people in Gaza City in the north.
Hundred of others were also wounded during the rampant bloodletting, Palestinian news agency Sama reported on Tuesday.
According to the agency, the raids did not spare any part of the already war-battered and mostly devastated coastal sliver, targeting residential structures, schools, and refugee centers.
Reporting on the fresh deadly escalation, Qatar’s Al Jazeera television network reported that explosions had rang out throughout Gaza’s northeastern areas, where the regime’s spy aircraft and warplanes have been engaging in extensive overflight.
The ceasefire took effect in January in the hope of ending the regime’s 15-month-plus war of genocide against Gaza that began after Hamas and its fellow resistance groups from the Palestinian territory launched a historic operation against the occupied Palestinian territories.
The operation saw the fighters venture deep inside the territories, encircling strategic Israeli bases and ensnaring 240 Zionists, including some American-Israelis.
Since initiation of the ceasefire deal, the regime has been routinely violating it besides blocking the entry of vital aid items into Gaza, including foodstuffs, medicine, and water, in an attempt to pressure Hamas into releasing those of the captives, who remained in the group’s captivity, in one batch.
Hamas has released 25 living captives and the remains of eight others in exchange for more than 2,000 Palestinian prisoners during the implementation of the first phase of the deal.
The movement has denounced Tel Aviv’s efforts at sabotaging the agreement, urging that release of the remaining captives is conditioned upon implementation of a second phase.
Earlier, the regime’s Ma’ariv newspaper reported, citing its sources, that Tel Aviv had turned down a proposal for, what it called, “selective release” of the American captives.
The sources said the regime has told the United States that diplomatic efforts towards enabling release of the remaining captives had ended.
They also said the regime’s so-called “security cabinet” had allowed its prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and minister for military affairs Israel Katz to determine the time for resumption of the genocide.
Netanyahu’s office, meanwhile, alleged that the regime had resumed its military attacks on Gaza after, what it termed as, Hamas’ turning down Washington’s proposals for extension of the ceasefire.
This is while Hamas has been constantly engaging with Qatari and Egyptian mediators towards keeping up the ceasefire, despite the disruptive Israeli efforts.
More than 48,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children, have perished during the genocide in addition to hundreds more who have been killed as a result of the Israeli violations of the deal.
Trump's green light
The White House says Israel consulted with US President Donald Trump's administration before launching its overnight wave of strikes in Gaza.
"The Trump administration and the White House were consulted by the Israelis on their attacks in Gaza tonight," Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said.
Hamas: Israel exposes captives to 'unknown fate'
Reacting to the most recent massacres, Hamas voiced reprehension over Netanyahu and his “Nazi” administration’s resuming their aggression and genocidal war against defenseless civilians in the Gaza Strip.
“We hold the criminal Netanyahu and the Nazi-Zionist occupation fully responsible for the repercussions of the treacherous aggression on Gaza, and for the defenseless civilians and our besieged Palestinian people, who are subjected to a brutal war and a systematic policy of starvation,” it added.
The regime, the group lamented, had decided to “overturn the ceasefire,” exposing the captives to an “unknown fate.”
Hamas has previously reported the death of scores of the captives as a result of incessant and indiscriminate Israeli bombardments of Gaza.
“We demand that the mediators hold Netanyahu and the Zionist occupation fully responsible for violating and overturning the agreement,” the group asserted.
Hamas also urged the Arab world, including its major institutions, as well as notable international organizations to take a firms stance concerning the aggression.
The United Nations and its Security Council has to press Tel Aviv into abiding by the UNSC Resolution that mandates an end to the Israeli aggression against Gaza and complete withdrawal of all Israeli forces from the territory, the group underscored.
It finally called for global protests, urging that “the free people of the world have to raise their voice in rejection of the resumption of the Zionist war of extermination against our people in the Gaza Strip.”
Netanyahu's lifeline to escape internal crises
Senior Hamas official Izzat al-Rishq said, “Netanyahu has decided to resume the genocidal war, considering it a lifeline to escape his internal crises.”
“The enemy will not achieve through war and destruction what it failed to achieve through negotiations.”
He added that, “Mediators are required to reveal the truth about Netanyahu’s betrayal of the ceasefire agreement and to hold him solely responsible for fueling the fire in Gaza and the region.”
Al-Rishq asserted that, “Military pressure and brutal aggression will not break the will of our people and our resistance.”
