Ruin buildings, chipping shots of motionless body circulating on social networks … We thought we had finished with these images. But on the night of Monday, 17 to Tuesday, March 18, the Israeli government led the most intense strikes since the start of the truce with Hamas in January. The human record is heavy: at least 413 people dead, according to the Ministry of Health of the Palestinian Movement, “mostly children and Palestinian women, and hundreds of wounded, of which dozens are in critical condition”.
“Preventive” strikes
Rosalia Bollen, spokesperson for the United Nations Childhood Fund (UNICEF), described in the New York Times 15 minutes of intense air strikes during the night bombardment, followed by sporadic bombing throughout the night, during a telephone interview from Al-Mawasi, in southern Gaza. In the morning, the Israeli army ordered the Gazaouis to evacuate the border areas of Israel, promising to continue the offensive until the return of all hostages.
Decided by Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu, and his Minister of Defense, Israel Katz, these strikes “follow” followed by Hamas repeated to release the hostages as well as to his rejection of all the proposals he received from the American emissary Steve Witkoff and the mediators, “justified the Israeli executive. For his part, TSAhal claimed “extended strikes on terrorist objectives belonging to the Hamas terrorist organization in the Gaza Strip”, in a press release.
An Israeli official speaking on condition of anonymity described these strikes as “preventive”, believing that they were aimed at “intermediate grade military commanders, members of the management of Hamas as well as terrorist infrastructure”. The offensive aims to prevent Hamas from “reconstructing forces and rearming,” he added.
The head of government in Gaza killed
In addition to the many civilian victims, the head of government of Hamas in the Gaza Strip, Essam Al-Dalis, was killed in the air strikes, the Islamist movement announced in the morning. He is part of a list of four “government leaders” in Gaza disseminated by Hamas in a “condolence press release”, which also includes the boss of the Ministry of the Interior, General Mahmoud Abu Watfa, and the Director General of Home Security, General Bahjat Abu Sultan.
Essam Al-Dalis was a member of the Hamas political bureau belonging to the management of the Islamist movement in the Gaza Strip since 2021. The general of division Abu Watfa was at the head of the Ministry of the Interior of the Government of Hamas in the Gaza Strip. He was seen in January, after the signing of the truce agreement, accompanying police deployments in the streets of the Palestinian territory.
The families of the worried hostages
After these strikes, Hamas called on the UN Security Council to meet in an emergency and adopt a resolution to force Israel to “stop attack” and remove its troops from the whole Gaza Strip. In power in the Gaza Strip since 2007, the Palestinian National Movement accused Benyamin Netanyahu of using war as a “rescue buoy” in the face of its political problems. An interpretation, as noted by New York Timesshared by Yair Golan, head of the Israeli opposition, who suggested that the resumption of the military campaign aimed to divert attention from the government’s decision to dismiss Ronen Bar, director of Israeli internal intelligence services.
Hamas also accused the Israeli Prime Minister of “torpedoing” the truce in force since January 19 and of wanting to “sacrifice” the hostages still retained in Gaza on their side, the families of people kidnapped by Hamas are worried, fearing that the armed group will take revenge on their relatives. Dani Miran, the father of the hostage Omri Miran, told the army radio that he was “horrified” to learn the news of the offensive, speaking of a dark day for the hostages.
“The Israeli government has chosen to abandon the hostages,” castigated the hostage forum and families who have disappeared in a message published on social networks, asking the Israeli Prime Minister to “stop killing” the captives. Despite calls to “return to the ceasefire”, the Minister of Defense Israel Katz said he would continue the fighting in Gaza “as long as the hostages are not returned”. Relatives of hostages therefore called for a demonstration on Tuesday morning in front of the Prime Minister’s office in Jerusalem.
Many international reactions
The international community did not fail to react to these new strikes. If China calls on all parties to prevent a “humanitarian disaster” in Gaza, Egypt firmly condemned Israel, while Turkey denounced a “new phase of the genocidal policy” of Tel Aviv.
The United States for its part confirmed that it was consulted before the launch of the strikes on the Gaza Strip. “As President Trump has made it clear, Hamas, Houthis, Iran, all those who seek to terrorize not only Israel but also the United States of America (will have to pay the price,” said the spokesperson for the American presidency, Karoline Leavitt, on the Fox News channel.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, said he was “horrified” by the resumption of Israeli bombings and called for “the nightmare to cease immediately”. Shortly after, the UN chief, Antonio Guterres, said he was “shocked”, and launched “an pressing call for the ceasefire to be respected”.
Israeli strikes follow weeks of unsuccessful negotiations for an extension of the truce with Hamas. At the dawn on Tuesday, it was still unknown whether it was a brief attempt to force Hamas to a compromise during these negotiations, or at the start of a new phase of war.