Israel resumed airstrikes on Gaza on Tuesday. Shortly before, the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that he had ordered the military to “immediately carry out forceful strikes” in the Gaza Strip.

According to the Israeli Defense Ministry, the strikes are a response to an attack on Israeli troops near Rafah. Netanyahu’s office did not provide further details but stated that the decision was made following “security consultations” with his Cabinet, which Netanyahu had convened hours earlier, after the Palestinian militant group Hamas returned the remains of an Israeli that did not correspond to any of the remains of the 13 hostages still to be located.

The new offensive follows an exchange of fire that some Israeli media had reported minutes earlier in Rafah, where Israeli forces were attacked on Tuesday. The Times of Israel reported that Israeli soldiers stationed in the southern municipality were assaulted by “terrorist operatives,” without directly linking the attack to Hamas, and added that Israeli troops responded by opening fire on the attackers.

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said that “Hamas will pay a heavy price for attacking soldiers in Gaza and for violating the agreement to return the bodies of the hostages.” In a statement from his ministry, Katz referred to “artillery and sniper fire” directed at his soldiers by “Hamas members” in Rafah.

Although the incident occurred in the south of the Gaza Strip, reports from Gaza City — the enclave’s largest urban area — indicated shortly after that airstrikes had resumed there. Footage shared by the Qatari network Al Jazeera shows columns of smoke rising above buildings, though no casualties have yet been reported. Attacks have also been reported in other areas in the north of the Gaza Strip, where Gaza’s capital is located.

The assault in Rafah and Netanyahu’s swift response recall the incidents on October 19, when Gaza was subjected to a one-day Israeli lightning offensive after Hamas members acting independently — according to the White House version — carried out a surprise attack on Israeli forces, killing two Israeli soldiers.

Those strikes killed more than 30 people in the enclave, according to the Palestinian news agency Wafa. During the operation, Israel dropped 153 tons of bombs. Since then, Netanyahu has repeatedly mentioned this in public appearances, stressing the high cost of breaking the ceasefire in Gaza, which came into effect on October 10.

Tensions had already been mounting before Tuesday’s outbreak of violence in Rafah. Various Israeli media outlets released aerial footage taken Monday by an Israeli drone showing what they claim are Hamas members burying the remains of Ofir Tzarfati — an Israeli whose body had been recovered by Israeli forces at the end of 2023 — before notifying Red Cross teams.

The IDF said its drones had recorded Hamas operatives “removing body remains from a structure that had been prepared in advance and burying them nearby” on Monday, and then staging “a false display of discovering a deceased hostage’s body.”

Later, when the remains were examined in Israel and found not to correspond to any of the 13 hostages Hamas still needs to recover and return under the ceasefire agreement — Hamas has already returned the remains of 15 others — Netanyahu convened “security consultations” with his Cabinet, which resulted in the order to resume large-scale offensive operations.

According to the public broadcaster Kan, Netanyahu is reportedly considering expanding Israeli control in the Gaza Strip beyond the portion currently allowed under the first phase of the ceasefire, in response to what he sees as Hamas violations.

Meanwhile, Hamas, which had announced it would deliver a new body on Tuesday night — reported by the Saudi outlet Al Hadath to have been found in Nuseirat, in central Gaza—warned that “any Zionist escalation [by Israel] will hinder the search” for bodies. The group also postponed the planned delivery because of Israeli “violations” of the ceasefire.

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