The health ministry in Gaza has said the death toll from a massive Israeli campaign launched early on Tuesday throughout the Palestinian territory had risen to “at least 413”, including children, unilaterally ending a weeks-long standoff over extending the January ceasefire.
“So far, 413 martyrs have arrived in hospitals in the Gaza Strip,” a health ministry statement said, adding: “A number of victims are still under the rubble and work is underway to recover them.”
Mohammed Zaqut, the ministry’s head told AFP earlier today that Palestinian women and children were among those killed while “hundreds [were] wounded, dozens of them in critical condition”.
Gaza’s civil defence agency spokesman Mahmud Basal told AFP that Israel’s military operation was ongoing, affecting schools and camps sheltering displaced people.
Strikes were reported in multiple locations, including northern Gaza, Gaza City and the Deir al-Balah, Khan Younis and Rafah in central and southern Gaza Strip.
The Israeli military, which claimed it hit dozens of targets, said the strikes would continue for as long as necessary and would extend beyond air strikes, raising the prospect that Israeli ground troops could resume fighting.
The attacks were far wider in scale than the regular series of drone strikes the Israeli military has said it has conducted against individuals or small groups of suspected fighters and follow weeks of failed efforts to agree an extension to the truce agreed on January 19.
In hospitals strained by 15 months of bombardment, piles of bodies in white plastic sheets smeared with blood could be seen stacked up as casualties were brought in.
The Palestinian Red Crescent said its teams dealt with 86 killed and 134 wounded, but others were brought to overwhelmed hospitals by private cars.
Men walk carrying the shrouded bodies of young victims who were killed in Israeli bombardment in Gaza City, at the Ahli Arab hospital, also known as the Baptist hospital, in Gaza City on March 18, 2025. — AFP
Officials from Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, Al-Aqsa Hospital in the central Gaza Strip and Al-Ahly Hospital in Gaza City — which have all been extensively damaged in the onslaught — said that altogether they had received around 85 dead. Authorities also reported separately that 16 members of one family in southern Gaza’s Rafah had been killed.
In Washington, a White House spokesperson said Israel had consulted the US administration before it carried out the strikes, which the military claimed targeted mid-level Hamas commanders and leadership officials as well as infrastructure belonging to the group.
“Hamas could have released hostages to extend the ceasefire but instead chose refusal and war,” White House spokesperson Brian Hughes said.
In Gaza, witnesses contacted by Reuters said Israeli tanks shelled areas in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, forcing many families who had returned to their areas after the ceasefire to leave their homes and head northward to Khan Younis.
Much of Gaza now lies in ruins after 15 months of fighting, which erupted on October 7, 2023 when thousands of Hamas-led gunmen attacked Israeli communities around the Gaza Strip, killing some 1,200 people, according to Israeli tallies, and abducting 251 hostages into Gaza.
