‘Full force’: Horror escalation in Middle East as 400 killed

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has warned deadly air strikes in Gaza are “only the beginning”.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has warned fresh air strikes which reportedly killed hundreds in Gaza overnight are “only the beginning”.

Speaking in a televised address on Tuesday, local time, Mr Netanyahu said Israel has resumed combat in Gaza with “full force”.
“Hamas has already felt the strength of our hand in the past 24 hours. And I want to promise you – and them – this is only the beginning.”

The Prime Minister said all ceasefire negotiations will take place “only under fire”, stating Israel will continue to fight to achieve its goals – the destruction of Hamas and release of all hostages – with “full force”.

“The previous releases proved that military pressure is a necessary condition for freeing hostages,” he said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned the air strikes on Gaza are “only the beginning. Picture: Oliver Contreras/AFP

It comes as Israel dramatically brought an end to the region’s two-month ceasefire, attacking the sliver of land overnight on Tuesday.

Over 400 Palestinians were killed and hundreds injured in the strikes, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

The White House confirmed that Israel consulted US President Donald Trump’s administration before launching the wave of strikes, which Gaza’s health ministry claimed killed mostly women and children.

An Israeli government official told newspaper the Times of Israel that the military has a concrete plan “to move forward” with the bombing unless Hamas start talking again.

“If at any point the other side decides to go back to genuinely negotiating, and we go back to genuine talks, then we’ll stop [the offensive].

“At the moment, we’re left without any choice. Without small releases of hostage and without games, the goal is to get everyone out.”

A woman searches through the rubble of her home, destroyed in an Israeli strike, for salvageable items at the Nuseirat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip on March 18, 2025. (Photo by Eyad BABA / AFP)

Israel ‘murdering hostages’

But a group representing the families of the hostages have said they fear resuming hostilities could be a death sentence for those that remain in Gaza.

“The greatest fear of the families, the hostages and the citizens has come true,” said Hostages and Missing Families Forum in a statement.

“The Israeli government has chosen to abandon the hostages”.

Indeed, in a government meeting open to the public far right finance minister Bezalel Smotrich had the relative of a hostage thrown out of the room after she questioned the resumption of air strikes.

“We thought that we were serving in the Israel defence Forces and not the army of God’s vengeance. In these very moments, we are murdering hostages, and there is a deal on the table,” Ayala Metzger, the daughter-in-law of killed hostage Yoram Metzger, said on Tuesday,

“We heard you. Get out. Stop thinking you have the right to take control of the conversation and not allow others to think differently from you,” said Mr Smotrich.

“We hear you too much”.

Hamas accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of deciding to “resume war” after a deadlock on extending the truce. It warned that the return to fighting could be a “death sentence” for hostages still alive in Gaza.

Among the 400 killed, several have been senior Hamas officials.

Mr Netanyahu’s office said the operation was ordered after “Hamas’s repeated refusal to release our hostages, as well as its rejection of all of the proposals it has received from US Presidential Envoy Steve Witkoff and from the mediators.

“Israel will, from now on, act against Hamas with increasing military strength,” said the statement.

“We will not stop fighting as long as the hostages are not returned home and all our war aims are not achieved,” defence minister Israel Katz said. 

Apart from the release of the remaining hostages, Israel’s other main war aim is to crush Hamas.

Injured Palestinians including children and women are being brought to the Al Nasser Hospital, as Israel launches 'large-scale' air strikes across Gaza Strip. (Photo by Abdallah F.s. Alattar/Anadolu via Getty Images)

An Israeli official told AFP the military operation would “continue as long as necessary” and was expected to “expand beyond air strikes”. 

In a statement, Hamas said: “Netanyahu and his extremist government have decided to overturn the ceasefire agreement”.

“Netanyahu’s decision to resume war is a decision to sacrifice the occupation’s prisoners and impose a death sentence on them,” it said, accusing the Israeli prime minister of using the conflict as a political “lifeboat” to stay afloat amid domestic crises.

Two Hamas sources told AFP that a strike on Gaza City killed general Mahmud Abu Watfa, who headed the group’s interior ministry in the territory.

Officials reported at least 30 deaths in the most intense barrage since the January 19 ceasefire began. Source – Twitter

Farther south, in Khan Yunis, AFP footage showed people rushing stretchers with wounded people, including young children, to the Nasser Hospital. Bodies covered with white sheets were also taken to the hospital’s mortuary.

Mohammed Jarghoun, 36, was sleeping in a tent near his destroyed house in Khan Yunis when huge blasts woke him.

“I thought they were dreams and nightmares, but I saw a fire in my relatives’ house. More than 20 martyrs and wounded, most of them children and women.”

Ramez Alammarin, 25, described carrying children to hospital southeast of Gaza City.

“They unleashed the fire of hell again on Gaza,” he said of Israel, adding that “bodies and limbs are on the ground, and the wounded cannot find any doctor to treat them.

“They bombed a building in the area and there are still martyrs and wounded under the rubble … fear and terror. Death is better than life.”

‘Hell will break loose’

Mediated by Qatar, Egypt and the United States, the initial phase of the ceasefire took effect on January 19, largely halting more than 15 months of fighting in Gaza triggered by Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.

The aftermath of the strikes. Picture: Omar AL-QATTAA / AFP

That first phase ended in early March, and while both sides have since refrained from full-blown war, they have been unable to agree on the next steps for truce talks.

Israel has also carried out occasional strikes on Gaza, but not on the scale of Tuesday’s operation.

In a post on Telegram in the early hours of Tuesday, the Israeli army said it was “conducting extensive strikes on terror targets belonging to the Hamas terrorist organisation in the Gaza Strip”.

Mohammed Zaqut, head of the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza, said “at least 330 deaths” had been recorded, “most of them Palestinian women and children”.

He said there were “hundreds of wounded, dozens of them in critical condition”.

Israel ordered all schools near the Gaza border to shut.

Israel’s military has conducted “extensive strikes on terror targets” in Gaza, with officials reporting at least 30 deaths in the most intense barrage since the January 19 ceasefire began. Picture: X

US envoy Mr Witkoff told CNN on Sunday he had offered a “bridge proposal” that would see five living hostages, including Israeli-American Edan Alexander, released in return for freeing a “substantial amount of Palestinian prisoners” from Israel jails.

Hamas had said it was ready to free Alexander and the remains of four others.

Mr Witkoff said Hamas had provided “an unacceptable response” and “the opportunity is closing fast”.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed that Trump’s administration had been consulted before Israel’s Tuesday operation. 

“As President Trump has made it clear, Hamas, the Huthis, Iran, all those who seek to terrorise not just Israel, but also the United States of America, will see a price to pay — all hell will break loose,” she said in the televised interview.

Deadlock

During the first phase of the truce agreement, Hamas released 33 hostages, including eight deceased, and Israel freed around 1,800 Palestinian detainees.

Since then, Hamas has consistently demanded negotiations for the second phase.

Former US president Joe Biden had outlined a second phase which would involve the release of remaining living hostages, the withdrawal of all Israeli forces left in Gaza and the establishment of a lasting ceasefire. 

Israel military has conducted “extensive strikes on terror targets” in the most intense barrage since the January 19 ceasefire began.

Israel, however, seeks to extend the first phase until mid-April, insisting any transition to the second phase must include “the total demilitarisation” of Gaza and the removal of Hamas, which has controlled the territory since 2007.

The talks have been deadlocked, and Israel has cut aid and electricity to the territory.

“It’s so hard for me to think about what they’re (hostages) going through right now because I know that feeling,” freed Israeli captive Omer Shem Tov said in a recently released video.

“It’s a terrible feeling and it has to stop as soon as possible.”

Hamas’s October 2023 attack resulted in 1,218 deaths on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, while Israel’s retaliatory response in Gaza has killed at least 48,572 people, also mostly civilians, according to figures from the two sides.