A drone view shows destruction in a residential neighborhood, after Israeli forces withdrew from the area, amid a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, Gaza City. Photo: Reuters
US President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that a US-backed ceasefire in Gaza was not threatened after Israel launched airstrikes in the enclave that killed 26 people in response to the death of an Israeli soldier.
Israeli planes struck Gaza on Tuesday after Israel accused the militant group Hamas of violating the ceasefire, the latest violence in the three-week deal brokered by Trump.
Gaza health authorities said the strikes killed at least 26 people, including five in a hit house in the Bureij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip, four in a building in the Sabra neighborhood of Gaza City and five in a car in Khan Younis.
“As I understand it, they took out an Israeli soldier,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One. “So the Israelis retaliated and they should retaliate. When that happens, they should retaliate,” he added.
The Israeli army confirmed the soldier’s death on Wednesday.
People gather during the search for the bodies of deceased hostages, kidnapped by Hamas during the attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, amid a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, October 28, 2025. Photo: Reuters
“Nothing will jeopardize” the ceasefire, Trump said. “We must understand that Hamas represents only a tiny part of peace in the Middle East and that it must behave well.”
Read: Israeli airstrike kills five in southern Gaza, civil defense says
The Israeli military did not immediately comment on the strikes, which followed a statement from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office saying he had ordered immediate “powerful attacks.”
An Israeli military official said Hamas violated the ceasefire by carrying out an attack on Israeli forces stationed inside the “yellow line,” the deployment line agreed to in the ceasefire.
The US-backed ceasefire agreement took effect on October 10, ending two years of war sparked by Hamas’s deadly attacks on Israel on October 7, 2023.
Both camps accuse each other of ceasefire violations.
“If they (Hamas) are good, they will be happy and if they are not, they will be eliminated, their lives will be eliminated,” Trump said.
“No one knows what happened to the Israeli soldier, but they say it was sniper fire. And it was retaliation for that, and I think they have the right to do that.”
Hamas denied responsibility for the attack on Israeli forces in Rafah, southern Gaza, and said in a statement that it remained committed to the ceasefire agreement.
