Israel Launches Airstrikes in Gaza, Imperiling Cease-Fire With Hamas: Live Updates – The New York Times

Shortly afterward, Hamas said in a statement that the Israeli government had “resumed their aggression” in the Gaza Strip. Gaza residents reported intense strikes across the territory.

Israel’s strikes followed weeks of fruitless negotiations aimed at extending the truce. At dawn on Tuesday, it was not clear whether the strikes were a brief attempt to force Hamas to compromise or the start of a new phase of war in which it would try to force Hamas from Gaza, once and for all.

Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said Israel had consulted the White House before launching the strikes.

“As President Trump has made clear, Hamas, the Houthis, all those who seek to terrorize not just Israel but also the United States of America, will see a price to pay,” Ms. Leavitt said on Fox News on Monday night. “All hell will break loose.”

It was unclear whether the attack effectively ended the cease-fire between Israel and Hamas that took effect in mid-January. Hamas, in its statement, accused Israel of deciding to “overturn the cease-fire agreement, exposing the prisoners in Gaza to an unknown fate,” referring to the remaining hostages seized in the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

The office of the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said in a statement that he and the defense minister, Israel Katz, had instructed the military to act, citing “repeated refusal” by Hamas to release the hostages and saying the militants had rejected all proposals from Steven Witkoff, the U.S. envoy to the Middle East, and other mediators.

“Israel will, from now on, act against Hamas with increasing military strength,” the statement said.

Here’s what else to know:

• Targets in Gaza: Strikes were confirmed in at least three places: Gaza City, in the territory’s north; Deir al-Balah, in central Gaza; and Khan Younis, in the south. Gaza’s Civil Defense, the main emergency service in the Palestinian territory, said on Telegram that it was facing operating difficulties because of “multiple targets being struck at the same time.”

• Fate of hostages: Fewer than half of the 59 hostages remaining in Gaza are thought to be alive, according to the Israeli government.

• Smaller strikes: Since the cease-fire took effect, Israel has conducted a string of smaller strikes on Gaza, which Hamas says have killed more than 150 people, at least some of them civilians. It has accused Israel of repeatedly violating the truce agreement by continuing military operations.

Raja Abdulrahim contributed reporting.

In January, Israel and Hamas agreed to a multi-stage truce that would allow for the exchange of Hamas-captured hostages in Gaza in exchange for Palestinian prisoners jailed by Israel.

The first phase of the cease-fire ended in early March. Hamas released 30 Israeli and foreign hostages and handed over eight bodies, in exchange for the Israeli release of over 1,000 Palestinian prisoners. Several hostages had already been rescued or released before the two sides reached the agreement.

The fate of the cease-fire was unclear, though, after Israel resumed heavy strikes into Gaza on Tuesday, citing Hamas’s repeated refusal to release the remaining hostages. Earlier this month, President Trump sent warnings to Hamas militants to immediately release the remaining hostages in Gaza or face death.

Hamas accused Israel early Tuesday of overturning the cease-fire, “exposing the prisoners in Gaza to an unknown fate.”

So far, Hamas does not appear to have fired back. There have been no rocket alerts in Israel overnight. To pre-empt any retaliation, the Israeli authorities have barred outdoor gatherings of more than 10 people in the area around the Gaza Strip.

The Israeli military had prepared plans for a renewed ground operation in the event of a resumption of war. So far, there are no reports of troop movements within Gaza. The military declined to comment.

The attack imperils the tenuous ceasefire. Hamas has accused Israel of deciding to “overturn” the deal, while Israel said it will “act against Hamas with increasing military strength” from now on.

Tensions across the Middle East have heightened in recent weeks. The U.S.military struck targets in Yemen controlled by the Houthi militia, the opening salvos in what American officials said was a new offensive against the militants and a strong message to Iran, its main sponsor. The Houthis have vowed to retaliate.

Israel said overnight that it had conducted extensive strikes across Gaza, the first major attack on the territory since the cease-fire between Israel and Hamas began roughly two months ago.

The attack follows intense negotiations over the next steps in the cease-fire, which would involve a permanent end to the war. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that he had instructed the military to act because Hamas had rejected all proposals by mediators, and repeatedly refused to release the remaining hostages.

Mr. Netanyahu’s plan to hold a cabinet vote on the future of Ronen Bar, the head of the agency known as the Shin Bet, was announced less than a month after his government announced a similar intention to dismiss Gali Baharav-Miara, the Israeli attorney general. It also came amid a renewed push in Parliament by Mr. Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition to give politicians greater control over the selection of Supreme Court justices.

These moves mark a return to Mr. Netanyahu’s failed efforts in 2023 to reduce the power of institutions that had acted as a check on his government’s power, including the Supreme Court and the attorney general.

That program — often described as a judicial overhaul — proved deeply divisive, setting off months of mass protests and widening rifts in Israeli society. The campaign was suspended only after the Hamas-led attack on Israel in October 2023 revived a sense of national unity.

Now, amid a shaky cease-fire in Gaza, the easing of tension appears to have ended.

“The removal of the head of the Shin Bet should not be seen in isolation,” said Amichai Cohen, a law professor and fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute, a Jerusalem-based research group. “It’s part of the general trend of taking on these independent agencies and increasing the power of the executive.”

“The judicial overhaul is back,” Professor Cohen added.

The attempt to fire Mr. Bar prompted calls on Monday from opposition leaders and grass-roots activists for Israelis to demonstrate outside the government headquarters in Jerusalem on Wednesday, when the cabinet is set to vote on Mr. Bar’s future. A coalition of 300 major business leaders also issued a rare statement, criticizing Mr. Bar’s dismissal.

Ms. Baharav-Miara, the attorney general, issued a statement saying that Mr. Netanyahu could not begin the process of firing Mr. Bar until it was determined whether it would be lawful to do so. She said there were concerns that it would be a conflict of interest for Mr. Netanyahu — raising the prospect of a constitutional crisis if the prime minister ignored her warning.

In response, Mr. Netanyahu said that the cabinet would listen to her analysis before their vote. But he added that her intervention constituted “a dangerous undermining — and not the first — of the government’s explicit authority.”

The clash evoked similar bitter disputes in 2023, when hundreds of thousands held weekly protests against the government’s earlier attempt to overhaul the judiciary and the business leaders at one point joined labor unions to hold a national strike.

The immediate context to the attempt to fire Mr. Bar was a personal dispute between the security chief and the prime minister. For months, Mr. Bar had angered Mr. Netanyahu by investigating officials in the prime minister’s office over claims that they had leaked secret documents and also worked for people connected to Qatar, an Arab state close to Hamas. Mr. Netanyahu has denied wrongdoing; the Qatari government did not respond to requests for comment.

The final straw for Mr. Netanyahu, analysts said, was most likely a rare public intervention last week from Mr. Bar’s predecessor, Nadav Argaman. In a television interview, Mr. Argaman said he might reveal further accusations of wrongdoing by the prime minister if he believed that Mr. Netanyahu was about to break the law.

Such comments from a close ally of Mr. Bar were “too much” for Mr. Netanyahu, said Nadav Shtrauchler, a former adviser to the prime minister. “He saw it as a direct threat,” Mr. Shtrauchler said. “In his eyes, he didn’t have a choice.”

But the broader context, analysts said, is a much wider dispute between Mr. Netanyahu’s right-wing alliance and its opponents about the nature and future of the Israeli state.

Mr. Netanyahu’s governing coalition is formed from parties that variously represent ultrareligious Jews seeking to preserve their privileges; and settler activists aiming to deepen Israel’s control over the West Bank and further curb Palestinian rights.

For years, these groups have resented the independence of watchdogs like the judiciary, the attorney general and the security services, which have variously moved to limit some privileges for the ultra-Orthodox; block certain moves by the settler movement; and prosecute Mr. Netanyahu for corruption. He is standing trial on charges that he denies.

The government and its supporters say that reining in the judiciary and other gatekeepers like the Shin Bet actually enhances democracy by making lawmakers freer to enact what voters elected them to do. They also say that Mr. Bar should resign for failing to prevent the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, attack that ignited the war in Gaza.

The Shin Bet has “poked their noses into matters of governance, control, values, social cohesion and, of course, democracy,” Eithan Orkibi wrote in column on Monday for Israel Hayom, a right-wing daily newspaper. After Mr. Bar’s dismissal, Mr. Orkibi continued, the Shin Bet will “slowly be returned to their natural professional territory.”

But the opposition says such moves would damage democracy by removing a key check on government overreach, allowing Mr. Netanyahu’s coalition — the most conservative and nationalist in Israel’s history — to create a less pluralist and more authoritarian society. The opposition argues that Mr. Netanyahu should also take responsibility for the Oct. 7 attack, not just Mr. Bar.

“With a submissive coalition of yes men, Netanyahu is on his way to dismantling all of Israel’s gatekeepers,” Barak Seri wrote in a column for Maariv, a center-right daily. “To dismantling everything that is protecting Israel as we have known it since its establishment.”

In a separate development, the Israeli military said it had conducted strikes in central and southern Gaza against people trying to bury explosives in the ground. Hamas said the victims were civilians. While Israel and Hamas are formally observing a cease-fire, negotiations to formalize the truce have stalled and Israel is conducting regular strikes on what it says are militant targets. Hamas has said the strikes have killed more than 150 people, some of them civilians.

Reporting was contributed by Myra Noveck from Jerusalem, Johnatan Reiss from Tel Aviv and Abu Bakr Bashir from London.