Ceasefire violations in Gaza strain fragile truce between Israel and Hamas

John Yang:

Good evening. I'm John Yang. Tonight, there are major strains on the fragile ceasefire between Hamas and Israel, which has only been in place for just a little more than a week. Israel said it carried out a series of strikes across Gaza in response to Hamas attacks on troops near Rafah on the border with Egypt. In addition, Israel says it's cutting off aid shipments into Gaza until further notice.

One of the Israeli targets was a seaside coffee shop in Deir Al-Balah in all Gaza. Health officials say dozens of Palestinians were killed. In Israel, it is been a bittersweet day, celebrations as more freed hostages return to their homes and their families and mourning as Uriel Baruch was laid to rest. He was killed in the October 7 attacks and his body kept in Gaza until now.

Meanwhile, the remains of two more hostages who died in captivity were returned, so they may be given a proper burial. Special correspondent Leila Molana-Allen is in Tel Aviv tonight. Leila, it seems like this cease fire is running to a lot of problems rather rapidly this weekend. What's the latest?

Leila Molana-Allen:

That's right, John. And actually there were problems right from the very beginning. On Monday, just the 20 living hostages were released and only four of the 28 deceased hostages' bodies were released. That prompted an outcry from the families and the Israeli government said to Hamas, unless you release it to other bodies immediately, that is a ceasefire violation.

They started threatening to close the Rafah Crossing and not let the amount of aid in that is supposed to be coming in. What then happened was that, of course, Hamas hasn't agreed that they are going to leave the Gaza Strip or they're going to stop being in charge of it so they reinforced their presence in the cities and towns.

As the IDF pulled back, they went around and they started essentially arresting and did some public executions of these gangs that they say Israel has armed to try and fight them and they want to reestablish their power.

Now there was immediately a comment from President Trump who said if they're killing people in Gaza, that violates the ceasefire and we will go back and kill them. He clarified that he did not mean U.S. troops, but he meant Israeli troops.

Then the next thing that happened was this weekend we've seen multiple ceasefire violations and both sides are saying that each side is violating. Yesterday what happened was there was a bus that crossed into Gaza City, a family who were looking to try and find out what had happened to their home as so many hundreds of thousands Gazans are returning to their homes.

Now 11 people were killed when the IDF fired a shell at that bus, including seven children. Then in the south in Rafah, what happened was that the IDF said they had been attacked by Hamas fighters and that two soldiers were killed when Hamas fighters fired anti-tank missile at them. They responded with a massive wave of airstrikes that as you said, has killed dozens of people thus far. So many violations of both sides.

Where it's been left this evening is that Israel cats. The defense minister has said that they are going to put down border markers for the yellow line where the IDF's meant to have pulled back to. They're going to reestablish the situation, cease fire, but anyone crossing that line can be fired upon.

John Yang:

Leila, the idea of the ceasefire was going to give them time to negotiate the big questions, what Gaza would look like after the war. Is there a chance this could all fall apart and they never get to those big questions?

Leila Molana-Allen:

There absolutely is. And that was really the problem from the start, of course, when President Trump was here on Monday, addressing the Israeli parliament, he said, this is it, we've ended the war. It's all over. Best thing to happen to the Middle East in decades. That was really premature.

The fact that President Trump is a deal guy. They wanted to push this through. They wanted to do the initial stage, which is to stop the killing. They wanted to stop people in Gaza dying. They wanted to get aid in. They wanted to start that now. There has been a lot behind the scenes where all the parties involved here, the U.S. of course, but also mediators in Egypt and Qatar, they're trying to keep this deal on the road. They're focusing on deconfliction, stopping the bombing, stopping the shelling and getting the aid in.

But the reality is that the next stage of this huge Trump 20-point peace plan, we may never get there. Nothing else has been negotiated and the fruits of that are being born now if we forever stay in this stage where it's all about stopping and starting. Many people are concerned that this will turn into a Lebanon situation. It's been nearly a year since a ceasefire was agreed with the Lebanon war. There have been hundreds of violations documented by the Lebanese armed forces where Israel has struck both with airstrikes and shelling Lebanon. And they say there has been complete impunity for that.

And they're worried that the same situation will repeat itself here, where Israel continues to strike, when they say there's been some sort of violation, when they say that Hamas has done something which means will never progress to the next stage, reconstruction, will they ever be able to get the materials in? Where will all those Gazans live while that's happening? Will Israel allow building materials in unless Hamas is out of power, which they have not agreed to.

And beyond that, a Palestinian state, there are references to that in this peace plan, but can that ever happen? This technocratic committee, is this just going to be for Gaza? Is there going to be something that unites of them all the different Palestinian territories? What's the future here?

This is a huge and ambitious plan and we are languishing in that first stage, which may not even be able to survive.

John Yang:

Leila Molana-Allen in Tel Aviv, thank you very much.

Leila Molana-Allen:

Thank you, John.