What to Know About Israel’s Renewed Assault on Gaza

Israel this week launched the largest and most deadly attacks on Gaza since a cease-fire with Hamas that began roughly two months ago. The air barrage, which shattered the fragile truce in the enclave, killed hundreds of people, according to Gaza health officials.

Israeli forces later expanded ground raids in the enclave, including seizing part of a key corridor from which they had withdrawn as part of the cease-fire, which began in January. Hamas later fired rockets at central Israel for the first time in months.

Mediators were still seeking to prevent the violence from escalating to full-scale war. But neither side has yet shown willingness to meet the other’s demands.

Before dawn on Tuesday, March 18, the Israeli military announced that it was conducting “extensive strikes” on Hamas targets. Three days later, the death toll stood at more than 500 people, most of whom were killed in the initial bombardment, according to the Gaza health ministry. The ministry’s figures do not differentiate between civilians and combatants.

Hamas publicly announced the deaths of at least five senior officials among the group’s Gaza leadership. Two were officials in its political bureau, and others — including Bahjat Abu Sultan, the director of the group’s feared internal security agency — held senior security roles.

When Israel launched the strikes, some people were preparing a special meal before the daily Ramadan fast. Others were jolted out of sleep. After two months of relative calm, the widespread explosions left Gazans with an unmistakable message: The war had returned, at least for now.

Since the strikes, Israeli forces have bombarded targets across Gaza, saying they were attacking Hamas sites and operatives. Israeli ground troops have also seized the Netzarim Corridor in central Gaza, from which they withdrew during the cease-fire with Hamas, and they have expanded ground raids in northern and southern Gaza.

Why did Israel resume airstrikes?

Israeli leaders called the assault a response to intransigence by Hamas in talks over extending the cease-fire and releasing hostages. Critics in Israel accused Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, of trying to avoid signing an agreement with Hamas that would end the war and anger his far-right coalition allies.

As the strikes began, Mr. Netanyahu said that Hamas had demonstrated a “repeated refusal” to release the rest of the hostages whom it seized during its raid on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Around 1,200 people were killed and about 250 taken hostage in that attack, which began the war.

Hamas has argued that Israel is violating the agreement it signed in January, which created a path toward ending the war. Mr. Netanyahu has repeatedly suggested that he will not end the war until the end of Hamas in Gaza, which the Palestinian armed group has shown little interest in accepting.

Mr. Netanyahu in an address late on March 18 said that Israel would continue to attack Hamas in Gaza. “This is only the beginning,” he said. “We will continue to fight to achieve all of the war’s objectives.” He pledged that Israel would act against Hamas “with increasing military strength.”

The United States, which had been seeking to broker an extension of the cease-fire between Israel and Hamas, has backed the Israeli offensive.

What are Hamas’s capabilities?

Hamas accused Israel of deciding to “overturn the cease-fire agreement,” exposing the hostages in Gaza “to an unknown fate.” But it is unclear how forceful a military response the group can muster after months of devastating war.

Israel has systematically killed many of the group’s top leaders and fighters. The group is believed to have recruited new members into its armed wing, the Qassam Brigades, but analysts say they might not be as well-trained and experienced as their predecessors.

Members of the Israeli Parliament’s foreign affairs and defense committee — who receive classified intelligence briefings — said in a recent letter that Hamas still had more than 25,000 fighters. And Antony J. Blinken, the previous U.S. secretary of state, said before the end of his tenure in January that Hamas “has recruited almost as many new militants as it has lost.”

On Thursday, March 20, Hamas fired three rockets at central Israel for the first time in months, all of which were either intercepted or fell in open areas. That was a far cry from the massive barrages with which the group pummeled Israel in the first months of the war.

In their public statements, Hamas officials have instead focused on getting back to the cease-fire.

How did cease-fire talks break down?

The cease-fire between Israel and Hamas, which went into effect on Jan. 19, paused the fighting but did not secure an end to the war.

Instead, the agreement committed both sides to an initial truce that lasted at least six weeks as well as a broader framework for ending the conflict. As part of the first phase, Hamas handed over 30 hostages and the remains of eight others, while Israel released more than 1,500 Palestinian prisoners.

During the six-week cease-fire, Israel and Hamas were supposed to negotiate the terms for the next steps in the truce: an end to the war, the full withdrawal of Israeli forces, and the release of the remaining living hostages seized by Hamas during the Oct. 7, 2023, attack.

But those talks stalled because of disagreement over fundamental issues.

Hamas, which has tried to use the hostages as leverage, has refused to release significant numbers of additional captives until Israel promises to end the war permanently.

But Mr. Netanyahu’s government has refused to agree to end the war unless Hamas gives up control of Gaza or dismantles its military wing. Hamas has shown little inclination to agree to the Israeli demands.

To increase pressure on Hamas, Israel halted the delivery of aid and humanitarian supplies into Gaza earlier in March, and the week before launching airstrikes it cut off electricity that flowed to a water desalination plant in the enclave.

Those decisions exacerbated hardships faced by civilians in the shattered enclave, where Palestinian health authorities say more than 48,000 people have been killed.

How many hostages remain in Gaza?

Hamas and its allies seized more than 250 people during the October 2023 attacks that ignited the war in Gaza. More than 130 have been released, including more than 100 during an initial cease-fire in the early months of the war and 30 more during the truce that began in January. The hostages were exchanged for hundreds of Palestinians held in Israeli prisons.

The Israeli military has also retrieved the bodies of at least 40 others. Less than half of the 59 who remain in Gaza are alive, according to the Israeli government.

Mr. Netanyahu has argued that the operation will help pressure Hamas into releasing more hostages. Many relatives of the remaining hostages are not convinced: They have often accused Mr. Netanyahu of effectively abandoning those still held there by returning to the war against Hamas.

Reporting was contributed by Patrick Kingsley, Adam Rasgon, Yan Zhuang, Rawan Sheikh Ahmad.