Qatar: IDF Gaza bombing complicates talks to restore truce

The IDF’s aerial bombing of Gaza complicated mediation efforts to reach an agreement to restore a “pause” to the war in exchange for hostages release, Qatar’s Foreign Ministry said on Friday.

“The Ministry stresses [that] the continued bombing of the Gaza Strip in the first hours after the end of the pause complicates mediation efforts and exacerbates the humanitarian catastrophe in the Strip,” the ministry said.

Qatar calls on the “international community to move quickly to stop the violence,” it said, as it underscored that efforts were ongoing to mediate a second truce that would include hostage releases.

It spoke up after a fragile temporary truce that had begun on the morning of November 24th, and which accompanied a hostage deal, fell apart at 7 a.m.

The resumption of Israel’s military campaign to oust Hamas from Gaza, which had begun on October 7, marked an end to an emotional week in which Hamas released 81 Israeli captives in seven separate groups.

The deal was based on a formula of a release of at least 10 live hostages for every 24 hours of a lull in the war.

Why did the ceasefire end?

7 a.m., when Hamas failed to produce a list of live Israeli captives to be released, hostilities resumed. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s efforts to ensure the continuation of the pause during his visit to Israel on Thursday were unsuccessful.

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It has been estimated that only about 100 of some 240 captives held by Hamas could have been freed under the existing deal, which saw the release of some 240 jailed Palestinian women and minors held on security-related offenses.

Israel accused Hamas of breaking the agreement by which Israel paused the Gaza War on November 24th.

Hamas “violated the deal” and did not live up to its duty to release all the female captives today,” the Prime Minister’s Office said, adding the terror group had also “launched rockets at the citizens of Israel.”

“With the resumption of the war, we emphasize that the Israeli government is committed to achieving the goals of the war.”

“These goals are“to eliminate Hamas and ensure that Gaza will never again pose a threat to the residents of Israel,” the PMO stated.

Hamas said Israel bore responsibility for the end of the truce, for rejecting terms to free more hostages and extend it.

“What Israel did not achieve during the fifty days before the truce, it will not achieve by continuing its aggression after the truce,” Ezzat El Rashq, a member of the Hamas political bureau, said on the group’s website.

The Kremlin on Friday said that it was continuing efforts to free Russian nationals held by Hamas in Gaza.

In a call with reporters, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that an extension of a week-long ceasefire between Israel and Hamas would have been more appropriate than Friday’s resumption of fighting, given the scale of suffering in the territory.

It had secured the unilateral release of one Israeli with Russian citizenship during the last week and was able to ensure that at least two other dual-national women were freed under the contest of the existing deal.

Hamas also released one Filipino and 24 Thai citizens in a separate agreement.

It had always been pressured that a second and more complex hostage deal would have to be worked out because it was assumed that Hamas would demand a higher price for the male hostages, particularly those serving in the IDF.

Hamas seized some 240 Israelis hostage when it infiltrated Israel on October 7, killing over 1,200 people. Hamas has asserted that close to 15,000 Palestinians have been killed in violence related to the IDF’s military campaign against Gaza sparked by that attack.

Israeli warplanes resumed pounding Gaza and Palestinian civilians fled for shelter and rocket sirens blared in southern Israel as the war resumed on Friday.

As the deadline lapsed, Reuters journalists in Khan Younis in southern Gaza saw eastern areas come under intensive bombardment, sending columns of smoke rising into the sky. Residents took to the streets fleeing for shelter further west.

In the north of the enclave, the main war zone for weeks, huge plumes of smoke rose above the ruins, seen from across the fence in Israel. The rattle of gunfire and thud of explosions rang out above the sound of barking dogs. Barely two hours after the truce expired, Gaza health officials reported that 35 people had already been killed and dozens wounded in air strikes that hit at least eight homes.

Medics and witnesses said the bombing was most intensive in Khan Younis and Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip and also targeted houses in central and northern areas.

“Anas, my son, I don’t have anyone but you my son!” wailed the mother of Anas Anwar al-Masri, a boy lying on a stretcher with a head injury in the corridor of Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis. “He is my only boy!”

Reuters contributed to this report.