Updates: Israel says deadly attacks on Gaza ‘only the beginning’

The live page is now closed.

To read an account of circumstances on the ground in Gaza, you can read our reporter’s notebook by Maram Humaid here.

You can also read our coverage on some of those killed since Israel resumed the war here.

We will be closing this live page soon. Here’s a recap of the day’s main events:

• More than 400 Palestinians, many of them children, were killed as Israel resumed the full-fledged bombing of Gaza, plunging the Strip into uncertainty and shattering a fragile ceasefire with Hamas that Israel had routinely violated over several weeks.
• Netanyahu said the strikes were “just the beginning” and that Israel would pursue its goals of destroying Hamas and rescuing all of the remaining captives still held in Gaza.
• Protesters across Israel accused Netanyahu of sacrificing the remaining captives by resuming the war rather than advancing to the second stage of negotiations with Hamas.
• Medical workers and humanitarian groups described horrific scenes in Gaza, where under-resourced hospitals were flooded with casualties and families searched for loved ones buried under the rubble.
• The Houthi rebel group in Yemen announced that they fired two ballistic missiles at Israel in retaliation for the resumption of bombing in Gaza, defying warnings from the US after a series of US strikes on Yemen over the weekend.

“The civilian casualties from Israeli strikes overnight are appalling,” UK Foreign Minister David Lammy posted on his X account.

He urged all parties to “re-engage with negotiations” to “surge aid and secure a permanent end to this conflict”.

“Diplomacy, not more bloodshed, is how we get security for Israelis and Palestinians,” he said.

Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth reports that police have used force to disperse demonstrators in Jerusalem calling for the release of captives held by Hamas and protesting against the resumption of the war on Gaza.

Video clips showed police officers dragging protesters and beating others.

Protesters have called for further demonstrations in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv on Wednesday.

The attacks targeted population centres that have become overcrowded due to the destruction of surrounding areas.

The scale and impact of the strikes raise concerns over civilian casualties.

Al Jazeera’s Alex Gatopoulos analyses the latest released imagery from the past 24 hours:

Al Jazeera is reporting from Amman, Jordan, because it has been banned by Israel and the Palestinian Authority in the occupied West Bank.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did indicate that the war is going to continue and the strikes we saw last night were not an isolated incident, meaning that Israel is going to resume military operations and escalate them however they see necessary – saying the negotiations are only going to be happening “under Israeli fire”.

We’ve heard this previously from the premier. This happened back in November 2023 during the first ceasefire deal – when it expired, the Israeli prime minister said the same thing.

So the military has had these plans for some time but it’s not just the plans that were drawn up and approved at the end of last week. Those were for the specific strikes that we saw on the Gaza Strip last night.

There are broader plans for another ground invasion, for a much wider air and sea campaign as time goes on.

And while the prime minister said that the main goal is to bring back all the Israeli captives, it’s worth mentioning that Israel was the one that stalled on the negotiations for phase two of the deal, which would ultimately have seen an end to the war followed by the release of all remaining 59 captives.

Media channels linked to Yemen’s Houthis have reported strikes by US forces on the city of Saada, the birthplace of their movement in the country’s north.

“A strike by the US aggression” targeted the Saada governorate, said the Houthis’ Saba news agency and Al Masira TV, while witnesses told the AFP news agency there were three attacks on the area.

Earlier on Tuesday, the Iran-backed group – who have pursued a campaign of attacks in what they say is solidarity with Palestinians – launched a missile at Israel, which the Israeli military said was intercepted.

Meanwhile, US air strikes on Yemen killed at least 53 people over the weekend.

The group says it appreciates “the Arab, Islamic, and international positions condemning and rejecting the resumption of the brutal aggression” by Israel.

“We call on friendly countries that support the just Palestinian cause to exert pressure on the US administration to halt this aggression and genocidal war against defenceless civilians,” the Hamas statement on Telegram adds.

“We demand that the United Nations, with its various political, legal and humanitarian institutions, takes urgent action and stand firmly against the Zionist occupation’s violations of international law.”

Israeli attacks on Tuesday killed at least 174 Palestinian children in Gaza, causing “one of the largest one-day child death tolls” in the territory’s history, the civil society group Defense for Children Palestine has said.

“Israeli forces have signed a death warrant for Palestinian children in Gaza as they carry out nonstop attacks, continue to destroy civilian infrastructure, and prevent any humanitarian aid from reaching Palestinians in need,” Ayed Abu Eqtaish, the group’s accountability programme director, said in a statement.

“This is nothing short of genocide.”

“Today marks one of the largest one-day child death tolls in Gaza in history,” said Ayed Abu Eqtaish at DCIP. “Israeli forces have signed a death warrant for Palestinian children in Gaza…this is nothing short of genocide.” https://t.co/n8XjGhSjQt

— Defense for Children (@DCIPalestine) March 18, 2025

The fragile ceasefire shattered as Israel launched new attacks on the enclave in the early hours of Tuesday morning.

The attacks have killed more than 400 people and reduced neighbourhoods to rubble.

Hospitals overflow with lifeless bodies, many of them children, as families flee eastern Rafah under evacuation orders.

Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azzoum reports from Deir el-Balah, central Gaza:

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says Israeli jets struck a military site in central Syria, the latest such attack in recent days.

According to the UK-based war monitor, “Israeli air strikes targeted a missile battalion” near Homs city. It reported explosions in the area but no immediate word on casualties.

A Syrian security source told Al Jazeera that Israeli raids targeted Syrian army positions in Shinshar and Shamsin in the countryside near Homs.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a US Muslim civil rights group, has called on Trump to pressure Netanyahu to end the war.

“President Trump must stop the madness after the government of indicted war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu renewed its genocide and slaughtered hundreds of Palestinians, including women and children, during the holy month of Ramadan,” Director Nihad Awad said in a statement.

“Without strong actions to push back against this renewed orgy of slaughter, mass destruction, forced starvation and ethnic cleansing, the Israeli government will continue to act with impunity and our government will remain as complicit with genocide as it was under the Biden administration.”

Hamas spokesperson Osama Hamdan tells Al Jazeera that Israel is “delusional” if it thinks it can change the ceasefire by escalating its military operations.

“They were surprised that we were committed to [the ceasefire] and that every step that was taken by the resistance was in line with what we agreed upon while everything that Israel did was after consultations with the Americans,” he said.

“So if they think that such operations will change the agreement, they are delusional.”

He said Netanyahu is suffering from “megalomania” and is trying to escape the corruption cases against him by resuming the fighting.

“The agreement we agreed in 2024 was violated and rejected by the Israelis, but then they had to commit to it again in 2025. Now, they are trying to reject or destroy this agreement, but it will not lead to the results the Americans and Israelis hope for,” he said.

“That’s why it’s better for the Americans to go back to their senses and understand that what is happening will only create more instability in the region.”

Amnesty International’s Secretary-General Agnes Callamard said “today is a desperately dark day for humanity” as she condemned Israel’s renewed attacks on Gaza.

“Israel’s genocide and its unlawful air strikes have already caused unprecedented humanitarian suffering in Gaza. Today, we are back to square one,” she said in a statement.

“The world cannot stand by and allow Israel to continue inflicting staggering levels of death and suffering on Palestinians in Gaza,” she added.

“We urge all states to uphold their obligations to prevent and punish genocide and to ensure respect for international humanitarian law, by pressing Israel to end its attacks and to facilitate the unconditional and unhindered entry of humanitarian aid.”

As Israel carries out some of the heaviest bombing of Gaza since the start of the war, medical workers say that hospitals are being overwhelmed with the dead and injured.

“A level of horror and evil that is really hard to articulate. It felt like Armageddon,” Dr Tanya-Haj Hassan, a volunteer with the group Medical Aid for Palestinians, told The Associated Press news agency.

She said that the Nasser Hospital emergency room in Khan Younis was chaotic, with patients, including children, spread out on the floor.

Dr Ismail Awad, working at a clinic with Doctors Without Borders, said the number of patients was “overwhelming”.

Scarcities of medical supplies have been exacerbated by Israel’s decision to cut off aid to Gaza two weeks ago, as well as electricity one week ago.

People here are barely coping. The ceasefire offered them hope and its collapse plunged people into relentless bombardment and displacement.

They are incredibly traumatised, grieving and struggling to cope with the aggravating number of air strikes.

We see how families have started moving from the areas that are marked as active military zones by the Israeli military in the early hours of this morning.

Every round of Israeli strikes makes survival much more difficult.

People feel very vulnerable in the face of this unprecedented escalation.

The aid group Doctors Without Borders, known by its French initials MSF, has called for the resumption of the ceasefire and says Israel is subjecting Gaza to collective punishment.

“In line with the tactics that the Israeli authorities have applied since October 2023, they have once again chosen to collectively punish the people of Gaza – with the explicit approval of their closest ally, the United States – striking with an intensity not seen since the early stages of the war,” Claire Magone, general director of MSF France, said in a statement.

“Israeli forces undertaking these latest ruthless attacks and evacuation orders make us fear that a new phase of military operations in Gaza is about to begin,” she added.

“Palestinians in Gaza will simply not be able to withstand this, neither physically nor mentally. Their hopes of recovering at least part of their previous lives are being shattered.”

Israel has launched its biggest assault on Gaza since a ceasefire was agreed on January 19 between Hamas and Israel.

Hundreds of Palestinians have been killed in the attacks on the enclave over the past day.

Many more have been forced to flee homes they had only just returned to.

Israel said the strikes were ordered because of a lack of progress in talks to extend the ceasefire.

Watch Al Jazeera’s Inside Story below: