Israel said on Friday its fighter jets had bombed the Gaza
Strip, in the clearest sign yet the war has resumed with full force after a
week-long truce. The announcement came shortly after the ceasefire expired. Minutes
after the truce expired, an AFP journalist on the scene said Israeli airstrikes
and artillery fire hit Gaza City.
Six
Palestinians were killed in an Israeli air raid on Rafah, in southern Gaza,
according to Gaza's health ministry. Two children were killed in air raids on
Gaza City, a doctor at Ahli Arab hospital told AFP.
The Palestinian group nevertheless said it was ready to
extend the truce in Gaza, after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken called for
the pause to continue.
Based
on internal documents, the New York Times claimed on Friday Israeli officials
had obtained Hamas' plan more than a year in advance to carry out an
unprecedented attack against Israel, but judged this scenario unrealistic.
The Hamas-controlled Government Media Office has blamed the United States and
the international community for the resumption of fighting in Gaza after a
week-long truce between Israel and Hamas broke down Friday.
The ministry said that America and the international
community bears responsibility for the crimes of the Israeli occupation and the
continuation of the brutal war against civilians, children and women in the
Gaza Strip.
The statement added that Palestinians had a right to defend
themselves by all means and to establish a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as
its capital.
The Israeli military resumed fighting in Gaza after the
militant group broke the outline of the truce, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu said in a statement released from his office Friday.
Hamas didn’t
respect its obligation to release today all the abducted women and launched
rockets toward the citizens of Israel, Netanyahu said.
With the return of the combat mission, the government of
Israel is obliged to accomplish the targets of the fighting, according to the
prime minister.
He said those targets are to release the hostages, to
liquidate Hamas and to ensure the citizens of Israel are never again threatened
by an attack from Gaza.
"What
Israel did not achieve during the fifty days before the truce, it will not
achieve by continuing its aggression after the truce," Ezzat El Rashq, a
member of the Hamas political bureau, said on the group's web site.
Palestinian media and Gaza's interior ministry reported
Israeli air and artillery strikes across the enclave after the truce expired,
including in Rafah, near the border with Egypt.
In Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, a Reuters
witness said he could hear heavy shelling and see smoke rising in the east of
the town. People were fleeing the area to camps in the west of Khan Younis for
cover, he added.
Qatar and Egypt had been making intensive efforts to extend
the truce following the exchange on Thursday of the latest batch of eight
hostages and 30 Palestinian prisoners.Thursday's releases brought the totals
freed during the truce to 105 hostages and 240 Palestinian prisoners.
One of Qatar's lead negotiators, career diplomat Abdullah Al
Sulaiti, who helped broker the truce through marathon shuttle negotiations,
acknowledged in a recent Reuters interview the uncertain odds of keeping the
guns silent.
"At the beginning I thought achieving an agreement
would be the most difficult step," he said in an article that detailed the
behind-the-scenes efforts for the first time. "I've discovered that
sustaining the agreement itself is equally challenging."
