Just over a week since the military resumed operations following a January truce, Israel said two projectiles were fired from the Gaza Strip, with one intercepted and the other landing near the border, and with no immediate reports of any casualties or damage.
The rocket fire came a day after hundreds of Palestinians staged a rare protest against Hamas, chanting slogans against the Islamist movement and calling for an end to the war.
Shattering weeks of relative calm in the war brought by the fragile ceasefire, Israel last week resumed intense bombardment and ground operations across Gaza, while militants returned to launching rocket attacks.
According to the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza, 830 people have been killed in the territory since Israel resumed its strikes on March 18. No deaths have been reported on the Israeli side.
Israeli officials say the resumption of operations was meant to pressure Hamas into releasing the remaining hostages, after a stalemate in talks with mediators on extending the truce – which saw 33 Israeli captives freed in exchange for Palestinian prisoners.
Israel wanted an extension of the truce’s initial phase, while Hamas demanded talks on a second stage that was meant to lead to a permanent ceasefire.
Netanyahu told parliament that “the more Hamas persists in its refusal to release our hostages, the stronger the pressure we will exert”.
“This includes the seizure of territories, along with other measures I will not elaborate here,” he added, days after his Defence Minister Israel Katz had warned: “The more Hamas refuses to free the hostages, the more territory it will lose, which will be annexed by Israel”.
Of the 251 hostages seized during Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel which triggered the war, 58 are still held in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead. (AFP)
