Gaza mourns on Monday for the dead from the wave of bombings launched the day before by Israel, following an ambush—by militants hiding under a tunnel—in which two soldiers were killed. The Israeli ground and air attacks lasted nine hours, killing at least 28 Palestinians and raising fears for the continuation of the ceasefire. Shortly after, the father of the agreement, US President Donald Trump, reaffirmed its validity and lent credibility to Hamas's version: it did not organize the ambush, but that it was carried out by armed men in the area of the Strip under Israeli control. Benjamin Netanyahu's government—which violates the ceasefire daily and has already killed nearly 100 Palestinians since it came into effect on the 10th—considered it an initial test to quickly establish the rules of the game and launched 153 tons of explosives against dozens of targets in different parts of Gaza, as the prime minister himself explained in Parliament on Monday."The price will be very high for every attack we suffer," he added.

Faced with the escalating violence, Trump on Monday dispatched his two key men for the Middle East, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner (who met with Netanyahu without comment) and ordered the unblocking of humanitarian aid to Gaza, which has been flowing from Egypt since early morning. US Vice President J. D. Vance is also scheduled to arrive on Tuesday.

The Israeli army assumes that episodes like Sunday's will be repeated in the coming months in the dozens of square kilometers where its troops remain deployed, according to Yoav Zitun, military correspondent for the daily Yediot Aharonot, on Monday. There, they have been destroying, together with private contractors (some of whom are paid based on the number of properties they demolish), almost all the buildings and infrastructure, leaving behind a landscape reminiscent of a post-apocalyptic film.

But underground, the tunnels he is working to destroy (in case he ends up leaving the area, during the withdrawal required by the agreement in phase two) still harbor militants hiding. On Friday, there were two similar incidents in Khan Yunis and Rafah, also in the south, but they went more unnoticed because there were no casualties among the soldiers.

Some militants stayed behind and remain in the tunnels. They open fire when Israeli troops enter before demolishing them. Many of them lost their commanders after two years of offensive against the Hamas leadership. For some time now, in fact, the ambushes have been almost individual, using recycled weapons from unexploded Israeli bombs. Others have chosen to stay behind to carry out the typical actions of armed groups that take advantage of their knowledge of the terrain to surprise an occupying army with infinitely superior resources.

In fact, three incidents triggered Sunday's mini-crisis. Few details have emerged about two of them because they are under Israeli military censorship. Media linked to Hamas report that a contractor's vehicle inadvertently triggered a long-hidden explosive, and an exchange of fire when Israeli troops tried to facilitate the escape of the Abu Shabab. This is a family clan in Gaza that has armed, protected, and facilitated the looting of humanitarian aid to resell it at premium prices on the black market.

The death of the two soldiers inflamed Netanyahu's most hardline ministers, those who voted against the ceasefire and aspire to annex Gaza and build settlements for Jews. They called for"war!" as one of them, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, tweeted. Homeland Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir urged the prime minister to"fully resume fighting in Gaza with full force" to "completely destroy" "the Nazi terrorist organization Hamas," in the face of "false assumptions that it will abide by the agreement." Minister of National Missions Orit Strock interpreted Hamas as not having violated the ceasefire: it had "declared with its actions" that "the agreement does not exist."

The general feeling on Monday is of a return to the previous status quo: one in which Hamas cannot afford any violation of the ceasefire, given the consequences it entails, while Israel does so daily, in order to preserve what its military experts call"freedom of action." This consists of continuing to attack anything it considers a threat, or an attempt by Hamas to arm or reorganize, just as it has been doing in Lebanon since 2024.

On Monday, the Israeli army reported killing"several terrorists" in the Shuyaiya neighborhood, east of the capital, claiming they crossed the so-called yellow line: the limit of the Israeli withdrawal, drawn in that color on the ceasefire agreement map, but not marked on the ground. The Palestinians approached the troops, posing an"immediate threat," the military statement said.

This is not an exceptional incident. Most of those killed by Israeli fire until Saturday had, in fact, been killed by crossing the yellow line. These are families or young people who do so unwittingly upon returning to their hometowns, even though their houses are only ruins. Gazans sense its boundaries from the presence of tanks, or from the information they share. Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz has announced that they will begin erecting barriers to visibly delimit it. On Sunday, 45 Palestinians were killed by Israeli fire, and 12 bodies have been recovered from the rubble of previous attacks during the more than two years of invasion.

Meanwhile, the Netanyahu government has closed the Rafah crossing with Egypt in the southern Gaza Strip, which it had planned to open last week, as a means of pressuring Hamas to expedite the return of bodies of Israeli hostages. The Islamist movement has returned 12 of a total of 28 and handed over a thirteenth body to the Red Cross tonight.

It's one of the ceasefire issues that has most poisoned the atmosphere. Israel assumes Hamas is using the bodies to buy time and is lying about how many it has managed to locate in devastated Gaza, where bulldozers are searching for them under the rubble."We know for sure that it can easily bring back a significant number of dead hostages," Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar said this week.

It is also limiting the amount and content of humanitarian aid below the minimum (600 trucks per day) stipulated in the agreement. A quick poll conducted last week by the daily Maariv included the question: Should Israel resume fighting until Hamas is eliminated if it continues to violate the agreement? Forty-five percent responded yes, compared to 23 percent who favored targeted bombing; and 26 percent who favored leaving the matter to mediators.