HAMAS HAS ACCUSED Israel of violating the current ceasefire agreement in Gaza after its army struck the central Nuseirat refugee camp last night.

The Israeli military claimed it targeted fighters associated with the Palestinian Islamic Jihad group who it said were planning to attack Israeli troops, which the group denied.

Al Jazeera reported at least one person had been killed in the strike.

Hamas called the strike a “clear violation” of the ceasefire agreement and accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of attempting to sabotage US President Donald Trump’s efforts to end the conflict. 

Last night’s strike hit the same area that Israel targeted in a series of strikes on 19 October, after the military accused Hamas of killing two Israeli soldiers.

That day, Israel launched dozens of deadly strikes across Gaza, killing at least 36 people, including women and children, according to local health authorities.

Last night’s attack also came a just few hours after US Secretary of State Marco Rubio left Israel.

Rubio was the latest in a series of White House officials to visit Israel and a new centre for civilian and military co-ordination that is attempting to oversee the ceasefire.

There has been a steady procession of high-ranking US officials, including Vice President JD Vance and special envoy Steve Witkoff, making visits to Israel since the ceasefire came into effect on 10 October.

Israeli media have described this diplomatic tag-teaming as “Bibi-sitting”, casting it as an effort from the Trump administration to ensure the president’s close ally Netanyahu abides by the ceasefire and works towards a long-term peace with the Palestinians in Gaza.

The details of the long-term plan for the governance and security of Gaza are mostly still up in the air at this point. 

One element of the plan, which was reportedly largely devised by former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, is the establishment of an international “stabilisation” force that would ensure Gazan security. 

It is expected that the force will be primarily drawn from Arab and majority Muslim countries such as Egypt, the UAE, Qatar and Saudi Arabia.

Today, Netanyahu said Israel would have a veto on which countries could participate.

“We made clear with respect to international forces that Israel will determine which forces are unacceptable to us,” he said. He also said Israel had the right to bomb other countries “without approval”, citing the 19 October attack in Gaza. 

“Israel is an independent state. We will defend ourselves by our own means and we will continue to determine our fate,” Netanyahu told the ministers.

“We do not seek anyone’s approval for this. We control our security.”

Yesterday, Mousa Abu Marzouk, Hamas’s head of international relations and legal affairs, warned: “Excluding Hamas from maintaining stability in the Gaza Strip could lead to chaos and a security vacuum.”

Despite Israel’s attacks during the increasingly shaky ceasefire and hostile rhetoric from the Israeli government, US officials have maintained they are confident the truce can last and that details of the plan for Gaza’s future could be ironed out. 

Meanwhile, Hamas has widened its search for the remaining corpses of people it and other groups took hostage during the October 2023 attack on Israel. 

Hamas is expected to return all of the remains of Israeli hostages as soon as possible. Israel agreed to give back 15 bodies of Palestinians for every body of a hostage.

Israel has sent back the bodies of 195 Palestinians so far, while Hamas has returned 18 bodies of hostages. In the past five days, Hamas has failed to release any.

An Egyptian team and heavy equipment, including an excavator and bulldozers, entered Gaza on Saturday to help search for the hostages’ bodies, part of efforts by international mediators to shore up the ceasefire.

With reporting from AFP and Press Association