The RAE dictionary says that “ceasefire” is used to “order to stop shooting.” It is impossible to apply the definition to what Israel has done in recent hours: the Government of Benjamin Netanyahu in response to an alleged attack with snipers and artillery by Hamas. Tel Aviv says that the Palestinian party-militia first broke the truce and has responded with a barrage that, according to medical sources cited by Al Jazeera, has already left 63 dead. At least 24 of them are children.
There have been murders in tents where displaced Palestinians were taking refuge, in , according to a paramedic; a mother and her daughter were killed in an Israeli airstrike on a house in the Tal al-Hawa neighborhood of Gaza City; five more, against a house in the Bureij refugee camp, in the center of the strip: and at least three, in a school where Palestinians took refuge in Beit Lahiya. They are civilian targets.
Is that peace? For the promoter of the armistice, US President Donald Trump, yes. It is a justified bankruptcy because, he says, Israel has the right to respond. His Army has not provided evidence about the attack he denounces, but has reported that a 37-year-old reservist sergeant. The disproportionality is manifest, even with rape. It is the second time that Israel has fired in the Palestinian strip since the ceasefire came into force; In the first, two soldiers died. They also denounced Hamas, but even Trump exonerated the Islamists, stating that based on his intelligence data it had not been them. Later, from Gaza, the hypothesis was put forward that they actually died when they stepped on one of the multiple explosives that remain in the area, without detonating.
The fact is that here we go again, with a supposed rupture on one side and with a burden that is not supposed, real, that has returned death and rubble to the Palestinians, which has once again revealed the lack of medicine and medical equipment in hospitals that have not recovered in these days of calm, because Israel continues to allow the passage of aid in dribs and drabs and continues to close Rafah, the main crossing to the south, with Egypt. Netanyahu’s people say that they are not going to open it until Hamas delivers all the hostage bodies left in its possession. It is three weeks behind schedule.
Despite this scenario, Trump insists that the ceasefire in Gaza is not in danger. “As I understand it, they shot down an Israeli soldier,” he told reporters aboard Air Force One. “So the Israelis returned fire, and it makes sense for them to do so. When that happens, they have to respond,” he added. He then added: “Nothing will jeopardize” the ceasefire, he stated. And he left this message for the Palestinian counterpart: “They must understand that Hamas represents a very small part of peace in the Middle East, and they must behave.”
Hours before Trump spoke, his vice president, , similarly predicted that the truce would hold despite the escalation of fighting on Tuesday. “The ceasefire holds. That doesn’t mean there aren’t going to be small skirmishes here and there,” he told reporters during a visit to the Capitol. “We know that Hamas or someone else inside Gaza attacked an IDF soldier,” he added, notably refraining from definitively attributing blame to Hamas. “We hope that the Israelis will respond, but I believe that the peace promoted by the president will remain despite this,” he added.
The threat
The US-backed ceasefire agreement went into effect on October 10, ending two years of war sparked by the deadly Hamas-led attacks on Israel on October 7, 2023.
Both sides have accused each other of violating the ceasefire. “If they (Hamas) are good, they will be happy; if they are not, they will be eliminated, their lives will end,” Trump said. “No one knows what happened to the Israeli soldier, but they say it was sniper fire. And it was retaliation, and I think they have the right to do it,” he details.
“If they (Hamas) are good, they will be happy; if they are not, they will be eliminated, their lives will end”
On Tuesday, Israeli media reported an exchange of fire between Israeli forces and Hamas fighters in the southern Gaza city of Rafah. Hamas denied responsibility for the attack on Israeli forces. The group also declared that it maintains its commitment to the ceasefire agreement in Gaza, different from the previous two since its attacks on October 7, 2023, because it has been raised by the White House and signed with great fanfare, in Sharm el Sheikh (Egypt).
“Hamas claims to have no connection with the Rafah shooting and reaffirms its commitment to the ceasefire agreement,” it said in a statement. He added that the Israeli attack, which he described as “terrorist”, adds to a series of “violations” committed in recent days, including attacks that caused deaths and injuries, in addition to the continued closure of the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt. He considered that these behaviors by Israel confirm its “insistence on violating the terms of the agreement and trying to sabotage it.”
In addition, he urged the mediators – Egypt, Qatar and the United States – who guarantee the agreement to take immediate measures to pressure Israel, stop its “brutal escalation against the civilian population” in the Gaza Strip, (…) and hold it accountable.
Tuesday’s attacks in Gaza City followed what Israel called a “targeted attack” on Saturday against a person in central Gaza who Israel said was planning to attack Israeli troops.
The attacks on Gaza continue this Wednesday morning and the usual scenes return: Civil Defense teams fighting to rescue Palestinians trapped under the rubble, using hand tools and their own hands to free many civilians who still remain trapped. Without means, without help. Hospitals, receiving the injured without anesthesia or painkillers. The morgues, full.
Hamas militants carry a body during the search for deceased hostages in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, on October 28, 2025.
Controversy over bodies
In recent hours, Israel has also denounced that Hama has tried to create a false impression about its efforts to locate hostage bodies in the Gaza Strip, denouncing that it is holding the bodies “as hostages” and is not complying with the return agreement.
The IDF released a video captured by drone showing members of the group removing the remains of Ofir Tzarfati from a building, burying them in the Shejaiya neighborhood and staging their discovery before the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).
According to a military statement, “the images clearly show that the terrorist organization Hamas is attempting to create a false impression of efforts to locate the bodies, while in fact holding hostage the deceased whose remains it refuses to release as required by the agreement.”
The video, released after Tzarfati’s family was informed, shows officers covering the body, disinterring it for the ICRC and photographing the scene. The IDF stressed that Hamas’s actions contradict its statements about logistical difficulties and stressed that the supposed engineering teams are not necessary for the return of bodies.
The ICRC assured that its teams in Gaza City present during the recovery of that body were not aware of this and described what happened as “unacceptable.” “It is unacceptable that a false recovery has been simulated when so much depends on whether this agreement is maintained and so many families continue to anxiously wait for news of their loved ones,” the organization said in a statement shared with EFE.
The organization assured that Hamas requested the presence of the ICRC during the exhumation, which went to the site and also notified the Israeli Army of its movements. “The ICRC team at this location was not aware that the deceased had been located there before their arrival, as the images show,” the statement continues, referring to the video that has uncovered the staging of the excavation.
In Gaza there are still 13 hostage bodies, in whose exhumations the Red Cross is usually present, which is also responsible for transporting the bodies from Hamas to the Israeli Army. Conversely, the Red Cross delivers to Gaza the bodies of Palestinians that Israel maintains in its possession and returns to the enclave in exchange for their hostages.
