WARNING: THIS STORY HAS GRAPHIC CONTENT
The ceasefire between Israel and Hamas has finally collapsed under the weight of its contradictions. The predictability of this moment does not make it any less devastating. After two months of relative peace, Israeli bombs are again falling on Gaza and people are dying again in the hundreds. Palestinian civilians – many of whom loathe Hamas or are too young to have any political opinions – will pay the highest price for the resumption of the fighting.
I learnt of the news in a text from Asmahan Abdalraheem, a 24-year-old Palestinian accounting graduate who has been sheltering for months with her family in a tent city in Khan Younis. “The war is back again now,” Abdalraheem wrote at 2.22am Gaza time on Tuesday. “We woke up to the sound of very violent bombing.” Punctuating her WhatsApp message: two broken-heart emojis.
Three minutes later, an official Telegram alert arrived from the Israeli Defence Forces announcing they were “currently conducting extensive strikes on terror targets belonging to the Hamas organisation in the Gaza Strip”.
Injured Palestinians, including children and women, are taken to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital for treatment as Israel launches large-scale airstrikes across the Gaza Strip.Credit: Getty Images
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said the resumption of the airstrikes “follows Hamas’ 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”.
Netanyahu’s office avoided explicitly declaring the ceasefire was over, but this was only semantics. More than 300 people have been killed in the air attacks, according to the Hamas-run health ministry, making them the most deadly since the ceasefire began on January 19.
A man holds the body of a dead child at the morgue of the hospital in Khan Younis after Israeli airstrikesCredit: AP
While much of the world’s attention has been focused on US President Donald Trump’s trade wars and his efforts to secure a ceasefire in Ukraine, the gossamer strands of the Gaza truce agreement have been unravelling in plain sight.
The scenario has played out exactly as Jonathan Conricus, a former international spokesman for the Israeli military, predicted during a visit to Australia last month. Conricus said the war would soon resume, with Israel implementing a siege on essential supplies entering Gaza. Soon after, Israel cut off food and energy supplies to the strip; now the aerial bombardments have begun again.
