Israeli PM orders military to immediately strike Gaza

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu instructed the military on Tuesday to immediately carry out "powerful" strikes on Gaza, his office said.

The statement from Benjamin Netanyahu's office comes as Israel says a coffin handed over by Hamas on Monday did not contain the body of another deceased hostage. Forensic tests showed the remains belonged to Ofir Tzarfati, whose body was recovered by Israeli forces in late 2023, and not to any of the 13 deceased hostages still in Gaza, his office said.

It accused Hamas of a "clear violation" of the two-week-old Gaza ceasefire deal. There was no immediate comment from Hamas. The group has said it is committed to the deal brokered by the US, Egypt, Qatar and Turkey, but that it needs help to find remains buried under the rubble left by two years of war.

HAMAS ACCUSES ISRAEL OF 'FABRICATING FALSE:

In a statement a little earlier, Hamas accused Israel of seeking to "fabricate false pretexts in preparation for taking new aggressive steps" in Gaza.

It says Israel is obstructing efforts to search for bodies in the Strip, and calls on mediators to "allow the relevant bodies to carry out their humanitarian tasks away from political and aggressive calculations".

QASSAM BRIGADES POSTPONES HANDING OVER CAPTIVE'S BODY DUE TO ISRAELI 'VIOLATIONS':

Hamas's military wing has announced that it will

postpone the handover of the Israeli captive's body that it found earlier today "due to violations" by Israel.

In a statement, Qassam Brigades stressed that any Israeli escalation "will hinder search, digging, and retrieval operations of the bodies, which will lead to a delay in recovering the bodies" of the dead captives.

GAZA PEOPLE TERRIFIED AFTER ISRAEL THREAT TO BOMB THE ENCLAVE:

Palestinians have heard the news of Israel's plan to launch "powerful strikes" on Gaza in the past few minutes.

They do not know when these series of air strikes will start or who will be targeted. We've heard loud drones patrolling the sky, but the attack hasn't begun yet.

People knew this ceasefire was going to be fragile and have been scared since an incident took place earlier with gunfire and explosions in southern Rafah. This is not the first time a violent incident has occurred and Israel launches attacks.

Palestinians don't want to go through this again. They've lived two years of relentless bombardment losing everything they have - family members. And now this is happening after a three-week ceasefire.