At least 330 people have been killed following Israeli airstrikes on Gaza, the Hamas-run health ministry has said.
Overnight, Israel launched then biggest wave of airstrikes since the ceasefire in Gaza started on January 19. The BBC reports that Israeli warplanes launched dozens of strikes on the Gaza Strip shortly after 02:15 local time.
The airstrikes were ordered by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Israel Katz ordered the strikes on Tuesday morning, according to a statement from the PM’s office.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it was targeting what it called “terror targets” belonging to Hamas, and said the strikes follow “Hamas’s repeated refusal to release our hostages.”
Hamas has accused Israel of going back on the ceasefire agreement between the two sides, and has said Israel is exposing the remaining Israeli hostages held in Gaza to “an unknown fate”.
Hamas has called on mediators and the United Nations to intervene, and has not declared that it is resuming the war.
Mahmoud Abu Wafah, the deputy interior minister in Gaza and the highest-ranking Hamas security official in the territory, was reportedly killed in a strike.
Doctors say many children were also killed in the strikes, the BBC reports.
Meanwhile, head of the Gaza health ministry, Mohammed Zaqut, told the AFP news agency that most of the dead are women and children.
An Israeli official told CBS that the government had given the White House notice before launching the strikes.
In a statement to the BBC, the UN Humanitarian Coordinator for the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Muhannad Hadi, said the attacks were “unconscionable.”
He added: “A ceasefire must be reinstated immediately. People in Gaza have endured unimaginable suffering.”
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