Israel strikes Gaza after it accuses Hamas of violating ceasefire and staging hostage discovery

By Abeer Salman, Jeremy Diamond and Oren Liebermann, CNN

Jerusalem (CNN) — Israeli strikes in Gaza killed at least 20 people, including children, after Israel accused Hamas of violating the US-brokered ceasefire deal and staging the discovery of a deceased hostage.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu instructed the military to carry out “immediate, powerful strikes in the Gaza Strip,” his office said in a short statement. The US was notified of the decision to carry out strikes in Gaza, a US official told CNN.

A military official said Hamas had attacked Israeli troops east of the so-called yellow line, which separates Israeli-occupied Gaza from the remainder of the territory. The troops, in the Rafah area of southern Gaza, had come under RPG and sniper fire, the official said.

Hamas denounced what it called the “criminal bombardment” by Israel, which it said violated the ceasefire agreement. It also denied attacking IDF soldiers and reaffirmed its commitment to the ceasefire.

At least 20 people were killed in the subsequent strikes across Gaza, according to hospitals in the enclave. Among those killed were at least three women and a man in the Al-Sabra neighborhood of Gaza City and at least five people, including two children and a woman, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, according to Gaza Civil Defense.

CNN has reached out to the IDF for comment on the strikes.

President Donald Trump said it was his understanding that “they killed an Israeli soldier,” without naming Hamas.

“So the Israelis hit back,” he told reporters on Air Force One on his way to South Korea. “Nothing’s going to jeopardize” the ceasefire, he added, repeating threats that Hamas would be “terminated.”

Earlier Tuesday, Netanyahu’s office said that Hamas was in “clear violation” of the Gaza ceasefire agreement after returning remains to Israel that did not belong to any of the 13 hostages still unaccounted for in the enclave.

An Israeli official told CNN that among the options being considered are expanding the so-called yellow line – Israel’s withdrawal line in Gaza – reoccupying additional territory, or retaking the Netzarim corridor, which cuts across Gaza.

Another Israeli source told CNN that any response would be coordinated with the United States, adding that Israel was also considering restricting the flow of humanitarian aid, but Washington opposes such a step.

IDF says Hamas staged discovery

The IDF also released a drone video on Tuesday that they say shows Hamas operatives burying a white cloth containing a body in Gaza City and then staging its discovery in front of the Red Cross.

In the nearly 15-minute clip, three men are seen dragging a white shroud into a bulldozed plot of land near a building and covering the shroud with dirt. After the shroud is completely covered, a bulldozer scoops up the dirt and drops it into a nearby pile. Moments later, Red Cross officials arrive on the scene as the shroud containing the body is pulled from the dirt. With the Red Cross standing nearby, the video shows the white cloth being buried and uncovered once again as someone with a cell phone appears to take a video of the scene.

The military said the video showed that Hamas “is attempting to create a false impression of efforts to locate the bodies” of the remaining deceased hostages. CNN cannot independently verify the video or the identities of the individuals in it.

The Red Cross said that its team was “not aware that a deceased person had been placed there prior to their arrival, as seen in the footage.”

“It is unacceptable that a fake recovery was staged, when so much depends on this agreement being upheld and when so many families are still anxiously awaiting news of their loved ones,” the Red Cross said in a statement.

The organization said that it had agreed to operate as an intermediary “in good faith” and noted that the situation in Gaza is “exceedingly challenging to work in.”

CNN has reached out to Hamas for comment on the video.

Hamas postpones hostage handover

Soon after Netanyahu said Israel would carry out new strikes in Gaza, the armed wing of Hamas announced it would postpone the handover of a hostage’s body that was recovered in southern Gaza on Tuesday due to Israel’s “violations.”

The militant group also warned that any Israeli escalation would “hinder search and excavation operations and the retrieval of bodies” of the deceased Israeli hostages.

Hamas had been set to transfer remains of a deceased hostage to Israel via the Red Cross on Tuesday. The militant group said the body had been pulled from a tunnel in Khan Younis.

A second body was unearthed in Nuseirat in central Gaza from the rubble of a building where Israel had carried out a rescue operation in June 2024. The operation rescued three Israeli hostages.

Hamas said at the time that other hostages had been killed during the Israeli operation, which both Israel and the US denied. But CNN has geolocated footage from the recovery of the body that shows it is the same building where the rescue occurred, raising fresh questions about whether Israeli hostages were killed during the mission. The Palestinian Ministry of Health said more than 270 Palestinians were killed and hundreds injured as a result of the rescue operation.

Hamas returned partial remains to Israel Monday that did not belong to any of the 13 hostages still unaccounted for in the enclave. Israel identified the remains as belonging to Ofir Tzarfati, a hostage who was kidnapped from the Nova music festival on October 7 and recovered during an Israeli military operation in Gaza in November 2023.

Israel launched its war on Hamas after the October 7, 2023, terror attacks in which the militant group and its allies killed more than 1,200 people and took 251 hostages to Gaza.

In the two years since, at least 68,527 Palestinians have been killed and 170,395 injured in the enclave, according to Gaza’s Ministry of Health.

Thousands of Palestinians are believed to be buried under the rubble.

Israel approved the ceasefire on October 9, 2025. The agreement included several conditions, including the release of all Israeli hostages both living and dead, and the withdrawal of some Israeli troops from Gaza. As of Tuesday, Hamas had returned only 15 of the 28 bodies of deceased hostages who remained in Gaza at the time the ceasefire was signed.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

Mohammad Al Sawalhi, Mohammed Tawfeeq and Eugenia Yosef contributed reporting.

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