Israel resumes attacks on Gaza after truce deal expires

Several explosions and gunfire have been reported in northern Gaza as Israel said it has resumed its attacks on the besieged Strip after a temporary ceasefire expired.

Palestinian media outlets also reported fierce clashes between Israeli forces and Palestinian resistance fighters on Friday.  

The Gaza-based Interior Ministry said Israel launched artillery strikes on the northwestern part of the Gaza Strip. A series of airstrikes also hit the besieged Strip.

Marwan al-Hams, the Director of al-Najar hospital in Rafah in southern Gaza, where many Palestinians fled after being told by Israel to leave the north of the territory, said strikes massacred at least nine people in the city, including four children.

Elsewhere, two children were martyred in air raids on Gaza City, said Fadel Naim, a doctor with al-Ahli hospital. Several news outlets said Israeli warplanes struck near the Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis. 

A source close to Hamas said the resistance group's armed wing had received "the order to resume combat" and to "defend the Gaza Strip", with heavy fighting reported in parts of Gaza City. 

Sirens were sounded in several Israeli settlements near Gaza as the Israeli regime claimed it had intercepted a rocket fired from Gaza. Israeli authorities said they were restarting emergency measures in the area including closing schools.

The truce, which was extended twice, began on November 24 and ended at 07:00 am local time (05:00 GMT) Friday. The ceasefire had paused brutal Israeli strikes on Gaza that began in early October.

The fighting resumed after US top diplomat Antony Blinken visited the region and held talks with Israeli leaders. Other world leaders, and aid groups, had sought an extended pause.

International bodies have called for more time to get medical supplies, food and fuel into Gaza, where an estimated 1.7 million people have been forced from their homes.

Israel launched the war on Gaza on October 7 after the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas waged the surprise Operation Al-Aqsa Storm against the occupying entity in response to the Israeli regime's decades-long campaign of bloodletting and devastation against Palestinians.

Tel Aviv also blocked water, food, and electricity to Gaza, plunging the coastal strip into a humanitarian crisis.

More than 15,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children, have been massacred in the Israeli strikes.

ME