Hamas has warned that Israel’s return to war has imposed a ‘death sentence’ on the remaining hostages held captive in Gaza.
Israeli airstrikes pounded Gaza overnight, ending the fragile two-month ceasefire as Benjamin Netanyahu vows to use more force to free hostages held by Hamas.
At least 413 Palestinians were killed in the strikes, including Hamas prime minister Issam al-Da’alis, the terror group has claimed. At least four other Hamas officials were reportedly killed in Israel’s attack.
Medical facilities in the region are ‘overwhelmed’ as hundreds of injured people seek care. A surgeon working at Gaza’s Nasser Hospital accused Israel of unleashing ‘utter carnage and destruction’ on Gazans, which he said is to be expected ‘when you drop bombs on tents’.
‘I did six operations overnight. Half of them were small children, probably six and below,’ Dr Feroze Sidhwa told Sky News Breakfast presenter Wilfred Frost. ‘Most of them are going to die, unfortunately.’
The Israeli military said it hit dozens of targets overnight and warned the attacks would continue for as long as necessary and extend beyond airstrikes, raising the prospect that Israeli ground troops could resume fighting.
Netanyahu has ordered Israeli forces to take ‘strong action’ against Hamas and threatened terror chiefs with ‘increasing military strength’.
His office accused Hamas of rejecting ceasefire proposals and ‘repeated refusal’ to release the remaining hostages in Gaza. The terror group still holds 59 of the 250 or so hostages seized in its October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.
Hamas has accused Israel of breaching the terms of the ceasefire agreement and claimed to be ‘working with mediators’ to stop the bombardment. The terror group also blamed what it described as ‘unlimited’ United States for giving the ‘green light’ for the attack and alleged America ‘bears full responsibility’ for the Gaza ‘massacre’.
Smoke billows behind a cemetery during Israeli strikes west of Gaza City on March 18, 2025
Israeli tanks manoeuvre on the border with northern Gaza Strip on Tuesday, March 18, 2025
Palestinians search through the rubble of their houses in Khan Yunis, Gaza, where the Israeli army launched a series of air strikes overnight, end the ceasefire agreement
Israel vowed on Tuesday to continue fighting in Gaza until all hostages are returned as it unleashed its most intense strikes since a ceasefire.
Hamas accused Netanyahu of deciding to ‘resume war’ after an impasse in truce negotiations, and warned that the return to fighting could be a ‘death sentence’ for hostages still alive in Gaza.
The strikes were by far the biggest and deadliest since a truce took effect in January. Hamas has not responded to the strikes so far.
Netanyahu warned Hamas this month of consequences it ‘cannot imagine’ if it does not free hostages still in Gaza, and Israeli media reported on plans aimed at ramping up pressure on Hamas dubbed the ‘Hell Plan’.
The White House said Israel consulted US President Donald Trump’s administration before launching the wave of strikes, which the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza said killed mostly women and children.
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,’ the statement said.
‘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.
This picture was shared in the aftermath of the extensive Israeli air strikes on Gaza
The picture was shared on social media following the impact of Israel’s renewed air strikes in Gaza
Palestinians make their way to flee their homes in Beit Lahiya, northern Gaza Strip on Tuesday after the Israeli army issued evacuation orders for a number of neighbourhoods
Hamas said the head of its government in Gaza, Issam al-Da’alis, (pictured in April 2023) was among several officials killed in the strikes
Apart from the release of the remaining hostages, Israel’s other main war aim is to crush Hamas.
In a statement, Hamas said Israel had ‘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.
Hamas said the head of its government in Gaza, Issam al-Da’alis, along with several other senior officials, was killed in the strikes.
Among those killed was Mohammad Al-Jmasi, a senior member of Hamas’ political office, and members of his family – including his grandchildren who were in his house in Gaza City when it was hit by an air strike, Hamas sources and relatives said.
It also named Mahmoud Abu Wafah, the highest-ranking Hamas security official in Gaza, and senior officials Ahmed al-Hatta and Abu Sultan among the deceased.
The terror group has accused Israel of breaching the ceasefire and jeopardising efforts by mediators to secure a permanent truce.
Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels denounced the Israel’s ‘resumption of aggression against the Gaza Strip’ and vowed to escalate their own operations, indicating a possible renewal of the Houthis’ strikes on shipping in the Red Sea.
‘The Palestinian people will not be left alone in this battle, and Yemen will continue its support and assistance, and escalate confrontation steps,’ a statement from the group’s Supreme Political Council said.
The US launched new airstrikes over the weekend targeting the Houthis in Yemen in retaliation for its attacks on shipping. At least 53 people were reported killed.
Trump on Monday warned Iran would ‘suffer the consequences’ for any further Houthi attacks, threatening to widen the conflict further.
Egypt, one of the mediators in the ceasefire deal agreed in January, called for restraint and urged all parties to work towards a lasting agreement.
An Israeli soldier directs a tank near the border with Gaza on Tuesday in southern Israel
Palestinians inspect the site of an Israeli strike on a residential building, in Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip on March 18, 2025
Strikes were reported in multiple locations overnight, including northern Gaza, Gaza City and the Deir al-Balah, Khan Younis and Rafah in central and southern Gaza Strip.
The IDF has issued evacuation orders to residents living on the edges of Gaza Strip, an area it has now designated as ‘dangerous combat zones’. Col. Avichay Adraee, in a post on X, advised Gazans to flee from the towns of Beit Hanoun, Khuza’a, and the Abasan suburbs of Khan Younis.
‘The IDF has launched a strong offensive against terror organizations. These designated areas are considered dangerous combat zones,’ he tweeted, also sharing a map of the communities included in the danger area.
‘For your own safety, you must evacuate immediately to known shelters in western Gaza City and in Khan Younis.’
He warned that remaining in the impacted region ‘puts your lives and the lives of your family members in danger.’
Airstrikes hit houses and tent encampments from the north to south of the Gaza Strip overnight and Israeli tanks shelled across the border line into the east and south of the enclave.
In Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip, 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.
Gazans have shared how they experienced a ‘night of hell’ that was reminiscent of the ‘first days of the war’.
‘I thought they were dreams and nightmares, but I saw a fire in my relatives’ house,’ said one Palestinian who was sleeping in a tent near his destroyed house in Khan Yunis when he was woken by huge blasts.
‘They unleashed the fire of hell again on Gaza,’ local resident Ramez Alammarin, 25, said of Israel, adding that ‘bodies and limbs are on the ground, and the wounded cannot find any doctor to treat them.’
Palestinians struggle to survive their daily lives in makeshift tents among the rubble of buildings destroyed by the overnight Israeli attacks in Beit Lahia, Gaza
Israeli airstrikes overnight were launched near tents housing displaced Palestinians in the Mawasi area of Khan Yunis, Gaza, resulting in numerous casualties on March 18, 2025. The strikes rendered many of the tents uninhabitable
Palestinian children walk past rubble as people make their way to flee their homes in the northern Gaza Strip on Tuesday, March 18, 2025
Families of Israeli hostages in Gaza are now pleading with Netanyahu to ‘stop the killing and disappearance’ of their loved ones, and have called for a protest in front of the premier’s residence.
The Hostages Families Forum criticised the decision to return to fighting, saying the shows the government ‘chose to give up on the hostages’.
The group asked the government in a post on X why it ‘backed out of the agreement’ with Hamas that set out a release of all the living hostages in exchange for an end to the war.
‘We are shocked, angry, and terrified by the deliberate dismantling of the process to return our loved ones from the terrible captivity of Hamas,’ the group said.
‘There is nothing more urgent than this! With each passing day, the danger to the hostages grows. Military pressure could further endanger their lives and complicate efforts to bring them home safely,’ the statement added.
The UN human rights chief Volker Turk said he was horrified by the Israeli bombardment.
‘This will add tragedy onto tragedy,’ he said in a statement. ‘Israel’s resort to yet more military force will only heap further misery upon a Palestinian population already suffering catastrophic conditions.’
Israel has halted aid deliveries into Gaza for over two weeks, exacerbating a humanitarian crisis.
Israeli media said Israel was opening shelters in multiple areas in commercial hub Tel Aviv to prepare for possible retaliation from Hamas or Yemen.
Israel’s renewed intense pressure on Hamas came as tensions flared elsewhere in the Middle East, which has seen the Gaza war spread to Lebanon, Yemen and Iraq.
Israelis call for the release of hostages held in the Gaza Strip and say the resumption of fighting in Gaza puts their loved ones at risk as they protest outside the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, in Jerusalem on Tuesday, March 18, 2025
Palestinians protest against renewed war on Gaza, in Ramallah, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank on March 18, 2025
The overnight attacks were far wider in scale than the regular drone strikes Israel has said it has conducted recently against suspected militants – and follow weeks of failed efforts to agree an extension to the truce agreed on January 19.
Witnesses in Gaza said Israeli tanks shelled areas in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, forcing many families who had returned after the ceasefire to leave their homes again and head north to Khan Younis.
In Washington, a White House spokesperson said Israel had consulted the US administration before it carried out the strikes.
‘Hamas could have released hostages to extend the ceasefire but instead chose refusal and war,’ White House spokesperson Brian Hughes said.
US envoy Steve 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.
Witkoff said Hamas had provided ‘an unacceptable response’ and that ‘the opportunity is closing fast’.
The Kremlin said on Tuesday it was concerned by reports of ‘major casualties among the civilian population’.
Palestinians ride on a truck as they flee their homes in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip on Tuesday after the Israeli army issued evacuation orders for a number of neighbourhoods
Palestinians flee their homes in Beit Lahiya, northern Gaza Strip on Tuesday following heavy Israeli strikes which prompted evacuation orders from the Israeli army
Negotiating teams from Israel and Hamas had been in Doha as mediators from Egypt and Qatar sought to bridge the gap between the two sides after the end of an initial phase in the ceasefire, which saw 33 Israeli hostages and five Thais released in exchange for some 2,000 Palestinian prisoners.
With the backing of the US, Israel had been pressing for the return of the remaining hostages in exchange for a longer-term truce to halt fighting until after the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan and the Jewish Passover holiday in April.
However, Hamas has insisted on moving to negotiations for a permanent end to the war and a full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza, in accordance with the terms of the original ceasefire agreement.
Hamas spokesperson Abdel-Latif Al-Qanoua said Tuesday that communication with mediators was ongoing, and the group was keen to complete the implementation of the original Gaza ceasefire deal.
Much of Gaza now lies in ruins after the war, which erupted on October 7, 2023 when Hamas-led gunmen attacked Israeli communities, killing some 1,200 people, according to Israeli tallies, and abducting 251 hostages into Gaza.
The Israeli campaign in response has killed more than 48,000 people in Gaza, according to Palestinian health authorities, and destroyed much of the housing and infrastructure in the enclave, including the hospital system.
