DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip: Israel launched airstrikes across the Gaza Strip early Tuesday, killing more than 400 Palestinians, local health officials said, and shattering a ceasefire in place since January with its deadliest bombardment in a 17-month war with Hamas.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the strikes, which killed mostly women and children, after Hamas refused Israeli demands to change the ceasefire agreement. In a statement aired on national television, he said the attack was “only the beginning” and that Israel would press ahead until it achieves all of its war aims — destroying Hamas and freeing all hostages held by the militant group.
All further ceasefire negotiations will take place “under fire,” he said. The White House said it had been consulted and voiced support for Israel’s actions.
The Israeli military ordered people to evacuate eastern Gaza and head toward the center of the territory, indicating that Israel could soon launch renewed ground operations. The new campaign comes as aid groups warn supplies are running out two weeks after Israel cut off all food, medicine, fuel and other goods to Gaza’s 2 million Palestinians.
“Israel will, from now on, act against Hamas with increasing military strength,” Netanyahu’s office said.
The attack during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan could signal the full resumption of a war that has already killed tens of thousands of Palestinians and caused widespread destruction across Gaza. It also raised concerns about the fate of the roughly two dozen hostages held by Hamas who are believed to still be alive.
The renewal of the campaign against Hamas, which receives support from Iran, came as the US and Israel stepped up attacks this week across the region. The US launched deadly strikes against Iran-allied rebels in Yemen, while Israel has targeted Iran-backed militants in Lebanon and Syria.
A senior Hamas official said Netanyahu’s decision to return to war amounts to a “death sentence” for the remaining hostages. Izzat Al-Risheq accused Netanyahu of launching the strikes to save his far-right governing coalition.
Hamas said at least six senior officials were killed in Tuesday’s strikes. Israel said they included the head of Hamas’ civilian government, a justice ministry official and two security agency chiefs. There were no reports of any attacks by Hamas several hours after the bombardment.
But Yemen’s Houthi rebels fired rockets toward Israel for the first time since the ceasefire began. The volley set off sirens in Israel’s southern Negev desert but was intercepted before it reached the country’s territory, the military said.
The strikes came as Netanyahu faces mounting domestic pressure, with mass protests planned over his handling of the hostage crisis and his decision to fire the head of Israel’s internal security agency. His latest testimony in a long-running corruption trial was canceled after the strikes.
The strikes appeared to give Netanyahu a political boost. A far-right party led by Itamar Ben-Gvir that had bolted the government over the ceasefire announced Tuesday it was rejoining.
The main group representing families of the hostages accused the government of backing out of the ceasefire. “We are shocked, angry and terrified by the deliberate dismantling of the process to return our loved ones from the terrible captivity of Hamas,” the Hostages and Missing Families Forum said.
Wounded stream into Gaza hospitals
Strikes across Gaza pounded homes, sparked fires in a tent camp outside the southern city of Khan Younis and hit at least one school-turned-shelter.
After two months of relative calm during the ceasefire, stunned Palestinians found themselves once again digging loved ones out of rubble and holding funeral prayers over the dead at hospital morgues.
“Nobody wants to fight,” Nidal Alzaanin, a resident of Gaza City, said. “Everyone is still suffering from the previous months.”
A hit on a home in Rafah killed 17 members of one family, according to the European Hospital, which received the bodies. The dead included five children, their parents, and another father and his three children. Another in Gaza City killed 27 members of a family, half of them women and children, including a 1-year-old, according to a list of the dead put out by Palestinian medics.
At Khan Younis’s Nasser Hospital, patients lay on the floor, some screaming. A young girl cried as her bloody arm was bandaged. Wounded children overwhelmed the pediatric ward, said Dr. Tanya Hajj-Hassan, a volunteer with Medical Aid for Palestinians aid group.
She said she helped treat a 6-year-old girl with internal bleeding. When they pulled away her curly hair, they realized shrapnel had also penetrated the left side of her brain, leaving her paralyzed on the right side. She was brought in with no ID, and “we don’t know if her family survived,” Hajj-Hassan said.
Gaza’s Health Ministry said the strikes killed at least 404 people and wounded more than 560. Zaher Al-Waheidi, head of the ministry’s records department, said at least 263 of those killed were women or children under 18. He described it as the deadliest day in Gaza since the start of the war.
In his statement Tuesday, Netanyahu blamed Hamas for civilian casualties, saying it operates among the population.
The war has killed over 48,500 Palestinians, according to local health officials, and displaced 90 percent of Gaza’s population. The Health Ministry doesn’t differentiate between civilians and militants but says over half of the dead have been women and children.
The war erupted when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel on Oct 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking 251 hostages. Most have been released in ceasefires or other deals, with Israeli forces rescuing only eight and recovering dozens of bodies.
US backs Israel and blames Hamas
The White House blamed Hamas for the renewed fighting. National Security Council spokesman Brian Hughes said the militant group “could have released hostages to extend the ceasefire but instead chose refusal and war.”
The ceasefire deal that the US helped broker, however, did not require Hamas to release more hostages to extend the halt in fighting beyond its first phase.
An Israeli official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the unfolding operation, said Israel was striking Hamas’ military, leaders and infrastructure and planned to expand the operation beyond air attacks.
The official accused Hamas of attempting to rebuild and plan new attacks. Hamas militants and security forces quickly returned to the streets in recent weeks after the ceasefire went into effect. Hamas on Tuesday denied planning new attacks.
Israel had sought to change the ceasefire deal
Under the ceasefire that began in mid-January, Hamas released 25 hostages and the bodies of eight more in exchange for more than 1,700 Palestinian prisoners as agreed in the first phase.
But Israel balked at entering negotiations over a second phase. Under the agreement, phase two was meant to bring the freeing of the remaining 24 living hostages, an end to the war and full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza. Israel says Hamas also holds the remains of 35 captives.
Instead, Israel demanded Hamas release half of the remaining hostages in return for a ceasefire extension and a vague promise to eventually negotiate a lasting truce. Hamas refused, demanding the two sides follow the original deal, which called for the halt in fighting to continue during negotiations over the second phase.
The deal had largely held, though Israeli forces have killed dozens of Palestinians who the military says approached its troops or entered unauthorized areas. Egypt, Qatar and the United States have been trying to mediate the next steps.
Israel says it will not end the war until it destroys Hamas’ governing and military capabilities and frees all hostages — two goals that could be incompatible.
A full resumption of the war would allow Netanyahu to avoid the tough trade-offs called for in the second phase and the thorny question of who would govern Gaza.
It would also shore up his coalition, which depends on far-right lawmakers who want to depopulate Gaza and rebuild Jewish settlements there.
Released hostages have repeatedly implored the government to press ahead with the ceasefire to return all remaining captives. Tens of thousands of Israelis have joined protests calling for a ceasefire and return of all hostages.
Netanyahu says Israeli strikes across Gaza that killed hundreds are ‘only the beginning’
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Netanyahu says Israeli strikes across Gaza that killed hundreds are ‘only the beginning’

- Netanyahu said the attack was “only the beginning” and that Israel would press ahead until it achieves all of its war aims
- Senior Hamas official Izzat Al-Risheq accused Netanyahu of launching the strikes to save his far-right governing coalition
Hundreds of Syrian Druze clerics head to Israel on pilgrimage
- Hundreds of clerics from Syria’s Druze minority on Friday are heading to Israel where they will conduct a pilgrimage to a sacred shrine, the second such visit since longtime ruler Bashar Assad’s
The clerics from the esoteric, monotheistic faith, are to cross the border on foot, according to a Syrian official and a local news organization, despite Israel and Syria being technically at war.
The delegation will visit the Nabi Shuaib shrine in north Israel’s Galilee region, where an annual pilgrimage is held from April 25-28 each year.
Abu Yazan, the official from Hader on the Syrian Golan Heights, said that 400 clerics from his town and from the Damascus suburb of Jaramana will head to Israel after the Israeli authorities gave their approval.
Asking not to be identified by his full name, he said the trip was “purely religious” in nature.
Suwayda24, a news organization from nearby Sweida province, said some 150 Druze clerics from that area would also participate.
The group notified the Syrian government of its plan to go to Israel, though it received no response, the website added.
Unlike during a smaller visit to the shrine last month, the clerics will spend the night in Israel this time.
Abu Yazan, who is one of the participants, said that “we requested to stay for a week to visit the shrine” and other members of the religious community “but the Israeli side only authorized one night.”
The Druze are mainly divided between Syria, Israel and Lebanon.
They account for about three percent of Syria’s population and are heavily concentrated in the south.
Israel seized much of the strategic Golan Heights from Syria in a war in 1967, later annexing the area in 1981 in a move largely unrecognized by the international community.
After Islamist-led forces ousted Assad in December, Israel carried out hundreds of air strikes on Syria and sent troops into the demilitarised buffer zone of the Golan.
Israeli authorities have also voiced support for Syria’s Druze and mistrust of the country’s new leaders.
In March, following a deadly clash between government-linked forces and Druze fighters in Jaramana, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said his country would not allow Syria’s new rulers “to harm the Druze.”
Druze leaders rejected the warning and declared their loyalty to a united Syria.
A deleted condolence after pope’s death revealed tension between Israel and the Vatican

- For most of Francis’ papacy, ties between Israel and the Vatican steadily improved — highlighted by a visit to the Holy Land in 2014
- Christians make up less than 2 percent of the Holy Land’s population
JERUSALEM: Hours after Pope Francis’ death was announced, Israel’s Foreign Ministry posted a short message on X: “Rest in peace, Pope Francis. May his memory be a blessing.” Several hours later, it was deleted without explanation.
Coming at a time of effusive global mourning over Francis’ death, the decision to delete the post appeared to reflect the tensions that have emerged between Israel and the Vatican over Francis’ frequent criticism of Israel’s conduct during the war in Gaza. The Foreign Ministry declined to comment on the deletion.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is usually quick to issue statements on the passing of major international figures. It took him four days to issue a terse, 28-word statement on the official Prime Minister account, and Foreign Minister Gideon Saar has been silent. The only immediate official condolences came from Israel’s president, Isaac Herzog, who holds a largely ceremonial role and who praised Francis for being “a man of deep faith and boundless compassion.”
For most of Francis’ papacy, ties between Israel and the Vatican steadily improved — highlighted by a visit to the Holy Land in 2014.
But everything changed after the war in Gaza erupted with Hamas’ deadly attack in southern Israel on Oct 7, 2023.
While expressing sympathy for Israeli victims and hostages, Francis has suggested Israel’s subsequent attacks in Gaza and Lebanon were “immoral” and disproportionate. He also called for an investigation to determine if Israel’s attacks in Gaza constitute genocide, a charge Israel denies while investigations at the UN’s top courts proceed.
“Pope Francis condemned what happened on Oct. 7, but he was clear also that what happened on Oct. 7 does not justify what has been happening since Oct. 7,” said Wadie Abunassar, who heads a group that represents Christians in Israel and the Palestinian territories.
Pope Francis was like a friend who tells the truth, even if that’s not exactly what you want to hear, Abunassar said.
Throughout the war, Francis walked a delicate balance between his close ties with Israel and condemning the devastating losses in Gaza, according to Amnon Ramon, an expert on Christianity in Israel and a senior researcher at the Jerusalem Institute for Policy Research. Francis was exceptionally close to Gaza’s local parish priest, who, like the former pontiff, is from Argentina.
A history of tension
Israel has historically had a fragile relationship with the Vatican. It stems from anger over the Vatican’s perceived lack of action during World War II, when critics argue Pope Pius XII kept silent during the Holocaust despite possible knowledge of the Nazi plan to exterminate the Jews. Supporters insist he used quiet diplomacy to save Jewish lives.
In the 1960s, the Vatican underwent a series of dramatic transformations, including, among other things, changing the Church’s attitude toward Jews over what was long seen as their collective culpability for the crucifixion of Jesus, Ramon explained. The Holy See formally launched diplomatic relations with Israel in 1993.
Christians make up less than 2 percent of the Holy Land’s population. There are about 182,000 in Israel, 50,000 in the West Bank and 1,300 in Gaza, according to the US State Department.
At the start of Francis’ papacy, the relationship with Israel warmed significantly. Francis visited the Holy Land in 2014 as one of his first international trips, when he met with Netanyahu, who was prime minister at the time. Then-President Shimon Peres visited the Vatican multiple times, including with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to plant a peace tree in the Vatican Gardens.
But the Israeli government’s rightward shift, and the ongoing war with Gaza, strained the ties.
The pope voiced concern for hostages held in Gaza
“Pope Francis expressed himself for the first time on Oct. 8, the day after the war began, and he followed the same line right through the end of his life: war is defeat, there’s no victory for war,” said the Rev. David Neuhaus, a local priest who served as a spokesperson during the pope’s 2014 visit.
“He expressed great concern for hostages, but said violence should stop and Israel is using force to something that cannot be achieved by force,” Neuhaus said. Francis also met the families of hostages held in Gaza and Palestinians affected by the war.
In an interview with The Associated Press in April 2023, the leader of Catholics in the Holy Land, Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa said that Netanyahu’s far-right government has made life worse for Christians in the birthplace of Christianity. He noted an increase in attacks against Christian sites, pilgrims, and religious leaders.
Although world leaders, including US President Donald Trump and French President Emmanuel Macron, will attend Francis’ funeral, Israel will only send its Vatican ambassador, a lower-level diplomat.
Foreign Ministry spokesperson Oren Marmorstein said this was due partially to scheduling conflicts and the funeral taking place on Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath, which requires Israeli politicians to stay within walking distance of the funeral. The decision was not indicative of any tension with the Vatican, he said.
“Israel will be represented in the most official way in the funeral through our ambassador there,” said Marmorstein. “There were things we didn’t agree with, but we are taking part in the funeral.”
Francis emphasized mercy in a polarized world
“Pope Francis was one of the best friends of Israel, but Israeli leadership didn’t understand him properly,” said Abunassar, the coordinator of the Holy Land Christian forum. Abunassar, a Catholic from the northern Israeli city of Haifa, said he was angry that the Israeli government hadn’t sent official condolences except through the president.
“The man was the leader of the most important church in the world. The man was the head of state. The man has followers among people who are Israeli taxpayers. The man deserves some respect.”
Netanyahu has publicly expressed condolences for the passing of other world leaders, including Queen Elizabeth II and former president Jimmy Carter, who was critical of Israel.
On Wednesday, hundreds of people streamed into the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, built on top of the site where tradition holds Jesus was crucified, buried and resurrected, for a special requiem mass in honor of Pope Francis.
Also in attendance were many representatives from Orthodox Christianity, a nod to Francis’ strong support for interfaith ties and his groundbreaking meeting with Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople Bartholomew I in Jerusalem in 2014, after centuries of strained relationships between the two churches.
Neuhaus said he hopes the next pope will follow the same message as Francis.
“I hope it will be someone who will put emphasis on mercy, someone who could bring us all together,” he said. “We live in such a divided, polarized world.”
Rescuers say death toll from Israeli strike on north Gaza home rises to 23

- Gaza’s civil defense agency reported on Friday that the death toll from an Israeli air strike the day before on a house in the north of the Palestinian territory had risen to 23
GAZA CITY: Gaza’s civil defense agency reported on Friday that the death toll from an Israeli air strike the day before on a house in the north of the Palestinian territory had risen to 23.
“Civil defense teams recovered 11 bodies last night and this morning following the Israeli bombing that targeted a residential house ... in Jabalia,” Mohammed Al-Mughayyir, an official with the agency, told AFP.
“This is in addition to the 12 victims recovered at the time of the attack yesterday,” he added.
Gaza’s northern area of Jabalia has repeatedly been a focus Israel’s military offensive since the start of the war on October 7, 2023 following Hamas’s attack on Israel.
The military has returned to the district several times after announcing it had been cleared of militants, saying Hamas fighters had regrouped there.
In another strike in the area on Thursday, Israel hit what was previously a police station, rescuers said.
The toll from that attack has risen to 11, Mughayyir said, after initially announcing that nine people had been killed.
The military said on Thursday that it had struck a Hamas “command and control center” in the area of Jabalia, without specifying the target.
Israeli strikes continued on Friday, with the civil defense agency reporting that at least five people — a couple and their three children — had been killed when their tent was struck in the Al-Mawasi area of the southern city of Khan Yunis.
Agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal said that the deceased woman had been pregnant.
Since Israel resumed its offensive on March 18 after the collapse of a two-month ceasefire with Hamas, at least 1,978 people have been killed in Gaza, bringing the overall death toll of the war to 51,355, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.
World Food Programme to reduce food support in Sudan due to funding shortages

- The United Nations agency warns that it may have to reduce the number of people it can help across the country, from May, if more funding does not come through from donors
GENEVA:The World Food Programme warned on Friday it is facing a funding shortfall that could impact its ability to supply support to people facing acute food shortages in Sudan within weeks.
The United Nations agency warns that it may have to reduce the number of people it can help across the country, from May, if more funding does not come through from donors.
It is seeking $698 million to help 7 million people from May through September.
Morocco volunteers on Sahara clean-up mission

- It may be the gateway to the vast Sahara desert, but that does not mean it’s free of that modern scourge of the environment — the rubbish humanity discards
M’HAMID EL GHIZLANE:It may be the gateway to the vast Sahara desert, but that does not mean it’s free of that modern scourge of the environment — the rubbish humanity discards.
In southern Morocco, volunteers are hunting for waste embedded in the sand, and they do not have to look far.
Bottles, plastic bags — “there are all kinds,” noted one helper who has joined the initiative cleaning up the edge of a village bordering the Sahara.
The initiative marks the 20th International Nomads Festival, which is held in mid-April every year in M’Hamid El Ghizlane in Zagora province in southeast Morocco.
Around 50 people, gloved and equipped with rubbish bags, toiled away for five hours — and collected 400 to 600 kilos of waste, the organizers estimated.
“Clean-up initiatives usually focus on beaches and forests,” festival founder Noureddine Bougrab, who lives in the village of around 6,600 people, told AFP.
“But the desert also suffers from pollution.”
The campaign brings together artists, activists and foreign tourists, and is a call for the “world’s deserts to be protected,” said Bougrab, 46.
He said the clean-up began at the northern entrance of the village, “which was badly affected by pollution,” and extended through to the other end of town and the beginning of the “Great Desert.”
The rubbish is “mainly linked to the massive production of plastic products, low recycling rates and atmospheric pollutants carried by the wind,” said anthropologist Mustapha Naimi.
Morocco has a population of almost 37 million and they generate about 8.2 million tons of household waste each year, according to the Ministry of Energy Transition and Sustainable Development.
“This is equivalent to 811 times the weight of the Eiffel Tower — enough to fill 2,780 Olympic swimming pools with compacted waste,” said Hassan Chouaouta, an international expert in sustainable strategic development.
Of this amount, “between six and seven percent” is recycled, he said.
Their morning alarm went off “early,” according to one volunteer, New York-based French photographer Ronan Le Floch, who said the initiative’s aim was “to show that it’s important to take care of this type of environment.”
Another helper was Ousmane Ag Oumar, a 35-year-old Malian member of Imarhan Timbuktu, a Tuareg blues group.
He called the waste a direct danger to livestock, which are essential to the subsistence of nomadic communities.
Naimi, the anthropologist, agreed. “Plastic waste harms the Saharan environment as it contaminates the land, pasture, rivers and nomadic areas,” he said.
Pastoral nomadism is a millennia-old way of life based on seasonal mobility and available pasture for livestock.
But it is on the wane in Morocco, weakened by climate change and with nomadic communities now tending to stay in one place.
The most recent official census of nomads in Morocco dates to 2014, and returned a population of 25,274 — 63 percent lower than a decade earlier in 2004.
Mohammed Mahdi, a professor of rural sociology, said the country’s nomads had “not benefited from much state support, compared to subsidies granted to agriculture, especially for products intended for export.”
“We give very little to nomadic herders, and a good number have gone bankrupt and given up,” he said.
Mohamed Oujaa, 50, is leader of The Sand Pigeons, a group that specializes in the “gnawa” music practiced in the Maghreb by the descendants of black slaves.
For him, a clean environment is vital for future generations, and he hopes the initiative will be “just the first in a series of campaigns to clean up the desert.”