Israel kept up airstrikes in Gaza on Wednesday killing dozens of people, after it said an attack by Palestinian militants had killed one soldier, in the latest challenge to an already fragile ceasefire.
U.S. President Donald Trump said that the U.S.-backed ceasefire was not at risk even as Israeli planes struck across the enclave, with Israel and Hamas trading blame for violations of the truce.
Gazan health authorities said the Israeli strikes killed at least 70 people, including five in a house hit in the Bureij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip, four in a building in Gaza City’s Sabra neighborhood, and five in a car in Khan Younis.
“As I understand it, they took out an Israeli soldier,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One. “So the Israelis hit back and they should hit back. When that happens, they should hit back,” he added.
The Israeli military confirmed the soldier’s death on Wednesday.
“Nothing is going to jeopardize” the ceasefire, Trump said. “You have to understand Hamas is a very small part of peace in the Middle East, and they have to behave.”
The Israeli military did not immediately comment on the strikes, which followed a statement by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office saying he had ordered immediate “powerful attacks.”
An Israeli military official said Hamas had violated the ceasefire by carrying out an attack against Israeli forces who were stationed within the so-called ‘yellow line’, the deployment line agreed upon in the ceasefire.
Turkey late on Tuesday said Israel’s renewed attacks on Gaza were a violation of the ceasefire and that the Israeli government must be pushed by world powers to fully adhere to the deal and end its “policy of genocide”.
Israel has strongly denied that its actions in Gaza amount to genocide and says they are justified as self-defence. Israel is fighting a case at the International Court of Justice in The Hague that accuses it of genocide.
The U.S.-backed ceasefire agreement went into effect on October 10, halting two years of war triggered by deadly Hamas-led attacks on Israel on October 7, 2023.
Both sides have accused each other of ceasefire violations.
“If they (Hamas) are good, they are going to be happy and if they are not good, they are going to be terminated, their lives will be terminated,” Trump said.
“Nobody knows what happened to the Israeli soldier but they say it was sniper fire. And it was retribution for that, and I think they have a right to do that.”
Hamas denied responsibility for the attack on Israeli forces in Rafah, in southern Gaza, and said in a statement that it remained committed to the ceasefire deal.
(Reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi, Trevor Hunnicutt Kanishka Singh and Maayan Lubell)
