Israeli strikes in Gaza kill 104 after Hamas accused of killing soldier

At least 104 Palestinians were killed in a wave of Israeli strikes in Gaza on Tuesday night, October 28, 2025, the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry says.

The Israeli military said it struck “dozens of terror targets and terrorists” in response to violations by Hamas of the US-brokered ceasefire deal.

Israel’s defence minister accused Hamas of an attack in Gaza that killed an Israeli soldier and of breaching the terms of returning the bodies of deceased hostages. Hamas said it had “no connection” to the attack and that Israel was trying to undermine the deal.

US President Donald Trump maintained “nothing” would jeopardise the ceasefire but added that Israel should “hit back” when its soldiers are targeted.

The Israeli strikes hit homes, schools and residential blocks in Gaza City and Beit Lahia in the north of Gaza, Bureij and Nuseirat in the centre, and Khan Younis in the south.

Witnesses in Gaza City described seeing “pillars of fire and smoke” rising into the air as explosions shook several residential areas.

Gaza’s health ministry said a total of 104 people were killed, including 46 children and 20 women, and that more than 250 others were injured.

Three women and a man were pulled from the rubble of the al-Banna family’s home in the southern Sabra neighbourhood of Gaza City, according to the Hamas-run Civil Defence agency.

In the urban Bureij refugee camp, five members of the Abu Sharar family were killed in a strike on their home in the Block 7 area, it said.

At Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, women gathered to mourn over the bodies of a mother, Bayan al-Shawaf, and her four children, who were killed in a strike on a tent at a camp for displaced families in the al-Mawasi area.

“What kind of world is this? Is this the ceasefire?” asked Bayan’s cousin, Umm Mohammed. “They [the children] were sleeping. They were wanting to learn.”

The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said on Wednesday morning, October 29, 2025, that it had “begun the renewed enforcement of the ceasefire” after carrying out a series of strikes on what it described as “dozens of terror targets and terrorists”, including at least 30 commanders of armed groups.

“The IDF will continue to uphold the ceasefire agreement and will respond firmly to any violation of it,” it added.

A brief statement put out by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office on Tuesday evening said he had ordered the IDF to carry out “forceful strikes” on Gaza but did not specify his reasons.

However, his defence minister said Hamas had crossed “a bright red line” by launching an attack on Israeli soldiers in Gaza on Tuesday, October 28, 2025.

“Hamas will pay many times over for attacking the soldiers and for violating the agreement to return the fallen hostages,” Israel Katz warned.

On Wednesday morning, October 29, 2025, the IDF announced that a reservist soldier, Master Sergeant Yona Efraim Feldbaum, was killed.

A military source said the attack took place in the southern city of Rafah on the Israeli side of the so-called “Yellow Line”, which demarcates IDF-controlled territory inside Gaza under the ceasefire deal.

Sgt Feldbaum was killed when one of the vehicles of an IDF engineering team that was dismantling an underground tunnel route in Rafah was hit by fire from “terrorists in the area”, according to the source.

“A few minutes later, several anti-tank missiles were fired at another armoured vehicle belonging to the troops in the area. No injuries were reported,” they added.

Hamas insisted on Tuesday, October 28, 2025, that it had “no connection to the shooting incident in Rafah”.

On Wednesday, October 29, 2025, the group stressed that it remained committed to the ceasefire agreement and accused Israel of seeking to undermine it with the strikes.

The US played down concerns that all-out hostilities could resume.

On board Air Force One, President Trump told reporters, “As I understand it, they took out, they killed an Israeli soldier. So the Israelis hit back, and they should hit back.”

“Nothing is going to jeopardise the ceasefire,” he said. “You have to understand Hamas is a very small part of peace in the Middle East, and they have to behave.”

UN human rights chief Volker Türk said the reports of so many people being killed were “appalling” and urged all sides not to let the opportunity for peace “slip from our grasp”.

On Wednesday afternoon, October 29, 2025, hours after announcing it had resumed the ceasefire, the IDF said it had carried out a new air strike on a site in the northern town of Beit Lahia where weapons and “aerial means” intended for an imminent attack were stored.

Palestinian media reported that one person was killed in the al-Salateen area.

On Tuesday afternoon, October 28, 2025, Israel’s prime minister had pledged to take unspecified “steps” against Hamas after the group handed over the previous day a coffin containing human remains that did not belong to one of the 13 deceased hostages still in Gaza.

Netanyahu’s office said forensic tests showed they belonged to Ofir Tzarfati, an Israeli hostage whose body was recovered by Israeli forces in Gaza in late 2023, and that this constituted a “clear violation” of the ceasefire deal.

The IDF also released footage from a drone that it said showed Hamas operatives “removing body remains from a structure that had been prepared in advance and burying them nearby” in eastern Gaza City on Monday.

“Shortly afterwards,” it added, the operatives “summoned representatives of the Red Cross and staged a false display of discovering a deceased hostage’s body.”

Hamas rejected what it called the “baseless allegations” and accused Israel of “seeking to fabricate false pretexts in preparation for taking new aggressive steps”.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) later condemned what it called the “fake recovery”, saying it had attended the scene “at the request of Hamas” and “in good faith”.

It went on: “The ICRC team at this location were not aware that a deceased person had been placed there prior to their arrival, as seen in the footage – in general, our role as neutral intermediary does not include unearthing of the bodies of the deceased.

“Our team only observed what appeared to be the recovery of remains without prior knowledge of the circumstances leading up to it.

“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.”

Gaza was among the 251 people abducted during the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, during which about 1,200 other people were killed.

Israel responded by launching a military campaign in Gaza, during which more than 68,600 people have been killed, including more than 200 since the ceasefire took effect, according to the territory’s health ministry.