• Negotiations for the second phase of the ceasefire failed to produce an agreement due to Israeli obstructionism.
• Israel was demanding the release of more hostages without offering any guarantees regarding its definitive withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.
• Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz stated that Hamas will be struck with a force "never seen before".

During the night of 17 to 18 March, the Israeli air force carried out heavy bombardments on the Gaza Strip. According to the Palestinian territory's Ministry of Health, the attacks killed more than 400 people, many of them children. The Israeli offensive marks the end of two months of ceasefire and the failure of negotiations for its extension. In recent weeks, Israel, backed by the United States, had increased its pressure on Hamas to prolong phase one of the ceasefire — the phase concerning the exchange of Israeli and Palestinian hostages — while opposing the transition to phase two, which was supposed to provide for the withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. The absence of guarantees for the Palestinian territory hindered the reaching of an agreement, and Israel has now announced the resumption of its large-scale offensive, after the first 16 months of bombardments, which began on 7 October 2023, had caused at least 48,000 Palestinian deaths.

The failure of negotiations

In mid-January, Israel and the Palestinian organisation Hamas reached a ceasefire agreement, which provided for a division into three phases. A first phase, from 19 January to 2 March, consisted of a halt to Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip, the release of dozens of Israeli hostages held by Hamas, the liberation of around a thousand Palestinians imprisoned — often without trial or charges — in Israeli jails, and the entry of humanitarian aid trucks into Gaza. During the second phase, to be negotiated in the course of the first phase of the ceasefire, the two parties were supposed to announce the permanent end of hostilities and Israeli troops were to withdraw definitively from the Gaza Strip, while Hamas was to release the last hostages still alive in exchange for the liberation of more Palestinian prisoners. Then a third phase was to follow, with plans for the reconstruction of the Palestinian territory and for who would administer it.

The terms set out for the first phase of the agreement were largely respected in the early weeks, but it then proved impossible to reach an agreement on the second phase of the ceasefire. Israel adopted the "Witkoff plan" proposed by the United States, based on a 42-day extension of the first phase of the agreement, with the release of more hostages. This removed any prospect of a phase two and therefore of a definitive Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and the end, once and for all, of the bombardments. To increase pressure on Hamas, Israel in recent weeks also imposed a new blockade on the entry of humanitarian aid into the Strip, precisely as the month of Ramadan was beginning. A violation of the ceasefire agreements, this further deepened the social and food crisis of the Palestinian population. As stated by Unicef on 17 March, one million children in the Gaza Strip are struggling to survive due to the lack of food and water.

The Netanyahu government, backed by the Trump administration in the United States, reversed course with respect to the original agreements with Hamas. And the absence of guarantees for the future of the Strip — after the American president had already called it "uninhabitable" and had promised to flatten it in order to build the "Middle East Riviera" — caused the negotiations to collapse.

New Israeli attacks

During the night of 17 to 18 March Israel announced the resumption of its military offensive on the Gaza Strip, placing the responsibility for the end of the ceasefire on Hamas and its refusal to release the hostages. As a White House spokesperson made known, the Israeli government consulted the United States before launching the attacks.

The air force carried out heavy air raids on several Palestinian locations, focusing above all on the cities of Gaza, Khan Younis and Rafah, where the crossing leading to Egypt was also closed. According to the first toll released by the Ministry of Health of the Gaza Strip, the bombardments caused more than 400 deaths, including dozens of children. This disproves, as in the past, Israeli statements claiming that the attacks were directed against Hamas members. Thousands of families who had been able to return to their homes during the ceasefire now find themselves displaced once again, and the Israeli army has issued new evacuation orders for certain areas, just as had happened in recent months during the heaviest phases of its war on Gaza. The International Red Cross reported that hospitals in Gaza, which have been operating under extremely difficult conditions for months, are now on the verge of collapse due to the arrival of hundreds of wounded.

Israel's initial statements suggest that the breaking of the truce is definitive. Defence Minister Israel Katz stated that Hamas will be struck with a force "never seen before" if it does not release all the hostages it still holds, while senior Israeli military officials made it known that the attacks will continue for as long as necessary and may not be limited to air raids, suggesting the imminence of a new ground invasion. Hamas for the moment has responded to the Israeli attacks only in words, emphasising that in this way Israel "has decided to sacrifice the hostages". At the international level, Volker Turk, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, spoke out, saying he was horrified by the resumption of Israeli bombardments on Gaza.