CAIRO/JERUSALEM, Aug 3 — Israeli airstrikes hit Gaza for a second straight day on Sunday, killing at least 18 Palestinians despite United States (US) President Donald Trump's announcement of a breakthrough in efforts to implement last year's ceasefire agreement.
Palestinian health officials reported that from dawn, Israeli warplanes hit Gaza City in the north, the central city of Deir al-Balah and the southern area of Khan Younis, causing the biggest daily death toll in weeks.
Trump's assertion on Thursday that Palestinian Hamas militants and other armed groups had agreed to disarm had raised hopes of a turning point in efforts to end the conflict.
On Sunday, Israeli Energy Minister Eli Cohen — a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's security Cabinet — said the government would give Hamas the opportunity to disarm but that he was "very sceptical" that would happen.
He told Israel's Army Radio there had been no deal to halt attacks on Gaza and that he saw a need for Israel, which already controls 70 per cent of the enclave, to take full control of it if Hamas did not disarm.
"In the deal we signed with the United States, our stance is that Hamas must be dismantled. This is the first thing that must happen," Cohen said.
Later on Sunday, a spokesman for Netanyahu's office told Reuters that Israel expressed concerns to the US on the disarmament plan.
"The most important concern for Israel is that nothing can happen before Hamas completely and truly disarms...," said Doron Spielman.
Attacks hit Gaza tents, apartment, and house, medics say
Palestinian health officials reported that strikes on Deir al-Balah killed at least four people, while the civil emergency service said that a separate attack wounded five people and set some tents ablaze in Mawasi, near Khan Younis.
Similarly, Palestinian officials said that a couple and their 9-year-old son were killed in a strike on a house in Mawasi.
Medics reported that another couple was killed with their child in a strike on an apartment in Gaza City, where two more people died in a strike on a tent near the office of the Egyptian representative mission.
Later on Sunday, another two people were killed in the city's eastern Zeitoun neighbourhood. One person was killed near Jabalia in northern Gaza.
The Israeli military said a strike on an apartment in Deir al-Balah was targeting two commanders of Hamas' elite "Nukhba" force.
The Gaza City and Jabalia strikes also targeted "military operatives", but the military was still reviewing the situation.
In a subsequent attack on Gaza City, medics said an Israeli airstrike on a car killed at least three Palestinians near Saraya Square.
Trump's Board of Peace, the US-led body overseeing the ceasefire, published a 15-point roadmap on Friday setting out the final steps for implementing the agreement.
Its lead envoy for Gaza Nickolay Mladenov said the strikes across Gaza came despite efforts by the board and mediators to bring Palestinian factions to agree on the roadmap for the implementation of Trump's plan.
He said that he was working with parties, mediators and regional partners to "de-escalate and create the space for the full implementation of the President's plan".
"Achieving a lasting peace is hard but achievable if everyone makes their best efforts," Mladenov said in a post on X (formerly Twitter).
At least 1,230 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli strikes since a ceasefire was reached in October, according to the Gaza health authorities. Hamas does not disclose figures on its war dead.
Four Israeli soldiers were killed over the same period, according to Israeli tallies.
Hamas says it has shown flexibility
Hamas has said Israel must stop its attacks in Gaza and pull its troops back, in accordance with other key terms of the ceasefire deal, before it will agree to hand over weapons to a new Palestinian body named to run Gaza.
On Sunday, a senior Hamas official said that the group had demonstrated "considerable flexibility", but accused Israel of wanting to impose a de facto situation on the ground by intensifying its strikes.
"This escalation, coinciding with progress on the political track, clearly demonstrates that the occupation government is seeking to undermine efforts aimed at ending the war and to impose facts on the ground by force," Basem Naim said in a statement.
On Facebook, former senior Fatah official Mohammed Dahlan, who is based in the United Arab Emirates, said that Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law and a senior adviser involved in the US initiative, had told him he was working with the Israeli side to stop attacks on Gaza.
He added that contacts with the US were continuing to ensure the agreement was fully implemented, and its success now depended on Israel fully ending its daily attacks on Gaza.
Reuters has reached out to the US State Department for comment on Dahlan's remarks. There was no immediate comment from Israel.
