Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Hamas on Wednesday (December 24, 2025) ‍of violating the Gaza ceasefire agreement after ​a military officer was wounded by an ‌explosive device in Rafah and Israel ​vowed retaliation.

Read | Meaningless truce: On Netanyahu, the Gaza ceasefire

His office said in a statement that Hamas must fully uphold the October agreement, noting that it envisaged the militant group being removed from power in Gaza as well as demilitarisation and deradicalisation ​of the territory.

“Israel will respond accordingly,” ⁠the statement added.

The Israeli military earlier said that an explosive device had detonated against a military ​vehicle in the ⁠southern Rafah area of Gaza and that one officer had been lightly injured.

Violence has subsided but not stopped since the Gaza truce ‌took effect on October 10, and ‌the sides have regularly accused each other of violating the ceasefire. ‍Gaza’s health ministry says Israel has killed more than 400 people in the territory since ‍the ceasefire went into effect.

A 20-point plan issued by U.S. President Donald Trump in September calls for an initial truce followed by steps towards a wider peace. It ultimately calls for Hamas to disarm and have no governing role in Gaza and ⁠for Israel to pull out of the territory, which remains in ruins ​after two years of war.

The sides have ⁠not fully agreed to everything in it. Hamas has said it will only hand over its arms if a Palestinian state is established.

Israeli fire killed two Palestinian children in the southern Gaza Strip on Saturday (November 29, 2025), a hospital reported, marking the latest deaths of Palestinians as a shaky ceasefire with Hamas held.

The two brothers, aged 11 and 8, died when an Israeli drone struck close to a school sheltering displaced people in the town of Beni Suhaila, according to staff at Nasser Hospital, which received the bodies. The Israeli military did not immediately comment on the killings.

At least 352 Palestinians have been killed across the territory since the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas took effect on Oct. 10, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. The Ministry, part of a Hamas-run government, does not differentiate between civilians and combatants, though it is staffed by medical professionals and maintains detailed records viewed as generally reliable by the international community.

Israel says the strikes are aimed at militants violating the truce, but the deaths have increasingly tested the fragile ceasefire. Both Israel and Hamas have accused the other of violating the deal.

Hamas once again called mediators on Saturday to pressure Israel to stop what it called ceasefire violations in Gaza following the killing of the two children.

Israeli forces have also pushed forward on a number of other fronts in recent weeks.

Syrian officials said Israeli forces raided a Syrian village on Friday and opened fire when they were confronted by residents, killing at least 13 people. Israel said it conducted the operation to apprehend suspects of a militant group planning attacks in Israel, and that the militant opened fired at troops, injuring six.

Israel also has escalated strikes in Lebanon, saying it was targeting Hezbollah sites as the militant group attempted to rearm.

In the occupied West Bank, Israeli soldiers were accused by Palestinians of executing two Palestinian men on Thursday after footage aired by two Arab TV stations showed troops shooting the men after they appear to surrender. The Israeli military said it was investigating.

Israeli settler violence has also continued to shoot up in the West Bank. On Saturday the Palestinian Red Crescent reported that 10 Palestinians were injured from beatings and live ammunition during settler attacks in the Khallet al-Louza village, close to Bethlehem.

At the same time, a U.S. blueprint outlining the future of Gaza, which has been devastated by two years of war, is still in its early stages. The plan to secure and govern the territory authorizes an international stabilization force to provide security, approves a transitional authority to be overseen by U.S. President Donald Trump, and envisions a possible future path to an independent Palestinian state.

 A Hamas delegation was in Cairo on Sunday (November 23, 2025) to meet with Gaza war mediators, an Egyptian security source and a Hamas source said, as both Israel and the Palestinian militant group continue to trade accusations of ceasefire violations.

The Hamas official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the delegation would be discussing Israel’s “continued violation of the ceasefire agreement”.

Egypt, Qatar and the U.S. have been mediating between Hamas and Israel, securing the ceasefire that came into effect last month.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had said the country’s military killed five senior Hamas members on Saturday (November 22) after a fighter was sent into Israeli-controlled Gaza territory to attack Israeli soldiers there.

Health officials in Gaza had said Israeli air strikes killed at least 20 people on Saturday. The military on Sunday said a local Hamas commander was among those killed in the Saturday strikes. 

The UN Security Council will vote on Monday (November 17, 2025) on a resolution endorsing U.S. President Donald Trump’s Gaza peace plan, diplomats said.

Last week the Americans officially launched negotiations within the 15-member Security Council on a text that would follow up on a ceasefire in the two-year war between Israel and Hamas and endorse Mr. Trump’s plan.

A draft of the resolution seen on Thursday by AFP “welcomes the establishment of the Board of Peace,” a transitional governing body for Gaza — that Mr. Trump would theoretically chair — with a mandate running until the end of 2027.

It would authorise member states to form a “temporary International Stabilization Force (ISF)” that would work with Israel and Egypt and newly trained Palestinian police to help secure border areas and demilitarize the Gaza Strip.

Unlike previous drafts, the latest mentions a possible future Palestinian state.

The United States and several Arab and Muslim-majority nations including Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Turkey called on Friday for the UN Security Council to quickly adopt the resolution.

“The United States, Qatar, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Pakistan, Jordan, and Türkiye express our joint support for the Security Council Resolution currently under consideration,” the countries said in a joint statement, adding they were seeking the measure’s “swift adoption.”

Friday’s joint statement comes as Russia circulated a competing draft resolution to Council members that does not authorise the creation of a board of peace or the immediate deployment of an international force in Gaza, according to the text seen Friday by AFP.

The Russian version welcomes “the initiative that led to the ceasefire” but does not name Mr. Trump.

It also only calls on the UN secretary-general to submit a report that addresses the possibilities of deploying an international stabilization force in war-ravaged Gaza.

The United States has called the ceasefire “fragile,” and warned on Friday of the risks of not adopting its draft.

“Any refusal to back this resolution is a vote either for the continued reign of Hamas terrorists or for the return to war with Israel, condemning the region and its people to perpetual conflict,” the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Mike Waltz, wrote in The Washington Post.

“Every departure from this path, be it by those who wish to play political games or to relitigate the past, will come with a real human cost.”

While it seemed until now that Council members supported principles of the peace plan, diplomatic sources noted there were questions about the U.S. text, particularly regarding the absence of a monitoring mechanism by the Council, the role of the Palestinian Authority, and details of the ISF’s mandate.

The Russian UN mission said in a statement that its alternative proposal differed by recognizing the principle of a “two-State solution for the Israeli-Palestinian settlement.”

“Unfortunately, these provisions were not given due regard in the U.S. draft,” it said.

Hamas fighters holed up in the Israeli-held Rafah area of Gaza will not surrender to Israel, the group’s armed wing said on Sunday (November 9, 2025), urging mediators to find a solution to a crisis that threatens the month-old ceasefire.

Sources close to mediation efforts told Reuters on Thursday that fighters could surrender their arms in exchange for passage to other areas of the enclave under a proposal aimed at resolving the stalemate.

Egyptian mediators have proposed that, in exchange for safe passage, fighters still in Rafah surrender their arms to Egypt and give details of tunnels there so they can be destroyed, said one of the sources, an Egyptian security official.

Sunday’s statement from Al-Qassam Brigades held Israel responsible for engaging the fighters, who it said were defending themselves.

“The enemy must know that the concept of surrender and handing oneself over does not exist in the dictionary of the Al-Qassam Brigades,” the group said.

U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff said on Thursday that the proposed deal for about 200 fighters would be a test for a broader process to disarm Hamas forces across Gaza.

Al-Qassam Brigades did not comment directly on the continuing talks over the fighters in Rafah but implied that the crisis could affect the ceasefire.

“We place the mediators before their responsibilities, and they must find a solution to ensure the continuation of the ceasefire and prevent the enemy from using flimsy pretexts to violate it and exploit the situation to target innocent civilians in Gaza,” the group said.

Since the U.S.-brokered ceasefire took effect in Gaza on October 10, the Rafah area has been the scene of at least two attacks on Israeli forces, which Israel has blamed on Hamas. The militant group has denied responsibility.

Rafah has been the scene of the worst violence since the ceasefire took hold, with three Israeli soldiers killed, prompting Israeli retaliation that killed dozens of Palestinians.

Separately, Al-Qassam Brigades said it will hand over the body of deceased Israeli soldier Hadar Goldin in Gaza on Sunday at 2 p.m.

Since the ceasefire, Hamas has handed over the bodies of 23 of 28 deceased hostages. Hamas has said the devastation in Gaza has made locating the bodies difficult. Israel accuses Hamas of stalling.

Israel has released to Gaza the bodies of 300 Palestinians, according to the territory’s Health Ministry.

Local health authorities said on Sunday that one man was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Bani Suhaila east of Khan Younis, south of the enclave. The Israeli military made no immediate comment.

Hamas-led militants seized 251 hostages in the October 7 attacks and killed another 1,200 people, according to Israeli tallies. Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed nearly 69,000 Palestinians, health officials in the enclave say.

Gaza health officials say that over 69,000 Palestinians have been killed in the Israel-Hamas war so far.

Gaza’s Health Ministry, on Saturday (November 8, 2025), said that the death toll has climbed to 69,169, with another 170,685 wounded since Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack into Israel.

Also read | Israel’s war on Gaza: Life and Death (Infographic)

The latest jump in deaths is attributed to more bodies being recovered under the rubble since the ceasefire was announced in the devastated strip, and also because of the identification of previously unidentified bodies.

The announcement comes after Israel on Saturday (November 8) returned the bodies of 15 Palestinians to Gaza, a day after militants returned the remains of a hostage to Israel under the terms of the tenuous ceasefire agreement in the two-year war.

The exchange marked another step forward for the tenuous, U.S.-brokered truce. As part of the deal, Israel has returned the remains of 15 Palestinians for each Israeli hostage.

The Nasser Hospital in the city of Khan Younis said the 15 bodies were brought there.

The return came shortly after Israel confirmed the remains given back on Friday (November 7) night were of an Israeli man who died while fighting Hamas in the militants’ October 7, 2023, attack that started the war. The hostage’s body was identified as that of Lior Rudaeff, according to a statement from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office.

The remains of three people handed over by Hamas to the Red Cross this week do not belong to any of the hostages, an Israeli military official said Saturday, the latest development that could undermine the U.S.-brokered agreement for a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war.

The handover followed Israel’s return on Friday (October 31, 2025) of the bodies of 30 Palestinians to Gaza. That completed an exchange after militants earlier this week turned over remains of two hostages, a sign that the tense Israel-Hamas ceasefire agreement was edging forward.

The unidentified remains of the three people were returned late Friday to Israel, where they were being examined overnight. At the time, another Israeli military official warned that Israeli intelligence suggested they did not belong to any of the hostages taken by Palestinian militants during the October 7, 2023 attack on southern Israel that sparked the war.

The second Israeli military official confirmed on Saturday (November they were not of any hostages. It was unclear who they might be and why they were returned to Israel.

Both officials spoke to The Associated Press of anonymity because they were not authorised to speak publicly on the matter.

A Hamas spokesman did not immediately answer calls and messages seeking a comment.

Since the U.S. brokered ceasefire between Israel and Hamas took effect on October 10, Palestinian militants have released the remains of 17 hostages that were held in Gaza for the past two years.

But the process of returning the bodies of the last 11 remaining hostages, as called for under the truce deal, is progressing slowly, with militants releasing just one or two bodies every few days.

The total number of Palestinian bodies returned by Israel since the ceasefire began now stands at 225. Only 75 of those have been identified by families, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. It is unclear if those returned were killed in Israel during the October 7, 2023 attack, whether they died in Israeli custody as detainees or were recovered from Gaza by troops during the war.

The fragile truce faced its biggest challenge earlier this week when Israel carried out strikes across Gaza that killed more than 100 people, following the killing of an Israeli soldier in Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost city, and the incomplete return of hostages..

Israeli forces carried out a “targeted strike” on an individual in central Gaza who was planning to attack Israeli troops, Israel’s military said on Saturday (October 25, 2025). A U.S.-backed ceasefire is in force between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas just over two years since the war in the Gaza Strip began, but each side has accused the other of violations.

Israel said it had targeted a member of Islamic Jihad. On Sunday (October 26, 2025), the Palestinian militant group said in a statement that the Israeli military’s claim of a planned attack by the group was a “mere fallacious allegation”.

It did not say whether one of its members was killed in the Israeli strike.

Witnesses told Reuters they had seen a drone strike a car and set it ablaze. Local medics said four people had been wounded, but there were no immediate reports of deaths.

Witnesses said separately that Israeli tanks had shelled eastern areas of Gaza City, the Gaza Strip’s biggest urban area. The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Several Israeli media sites said Israel, in a reversal of a policy of barring entry to foreign forces, had allowed Egyptian officials into the Gaza Strip to help locate the bodies of hostages taken captive in the Hamas-led attack on Israeli communities on October 7, 2023, that triggered the war.

As part of the ceasefire agreement, Hamas has said it will return all the hostages it abducted, but the remains of 13 are still in the enclave.

The Israeli Prime Minister’s Office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.