Gaza’s Return to War

Last week, the Israeli Air Force restarted intense strikes on the Gaza Strip, ending a two-month cease-fire that some had hoped would evolve into a more stable truce. Israeli troops have slowly begun to recapture ground just inside Gaza’s borders.

In today’s newsletter, I’ll explain how the cease-fire collapsed and what might happen next.

Why has fighting restarted?

It’s mainly because Israel and Hamas have incompatible visions of how this war ends. Israel wants Hamas to relinquish power, and Hamas wants to retain control of Gaza.

The sides were able to gloss over that fundamental difference in January, when they agreed to a weekslong truce in which Hamas released more than 30 hostages in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel. But by March, Hamas wouldn’t release more hostages until Israel upheld its earlier pledge to hold talks over a permanent truce.

Israel refused. To break the deadlock, Israel broke the cease-fire — seemingly with President Trump’s blessing. In early March, Trump warned Hamas that there would be “hell to pay” if more hostages weren’t freed. After his call went unheeded, the Israeli strikes began.

Officials say the military is focused on killing senior Hamas administrators who were not previously viewed as high-priority targets, signaling to Hamas that Israel will not allow the group to retain control of Gaza. On the first night of strikes, for example, Israel killed Essam Daalis, who was considered Gaza’s de facto prime minister. If Hamas still won’t back down, Israel is planning a major invasion of large areas that it relinquished earlier in the war.

The reaction

Palestinians are uniformly horrified at the new bloodshed, which has brought the overall death toll in the territory to more than 50,000, according to the Gazan health ministry. Many Palestinians had only just returned to their homes after months of displacement and now have been forced to flee once more.