Israel resumes Gaza assault: ‘This is just the start of a broader incursion'
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Prospects of peace in Gaza look “dismal” after Israel resumes strikes, with the approval of President Trump, but where does the UK stand in the situation – and what comes next for everyone involved?
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In brief…
- More than 400 people are believed to have been killed in a new Israeli strike on Gaza, the first since a ceasefire ended on 1 March.
- The News Agents say the humanitarian situation is “desperate” for civilians in Gaza, and people in Israel hoping relatives held hostage may still be returned.
- The UK’s foreign secretary, David Lammy, has been critical of Israel’s actions, but has been contradicted by a more restrained response from 10 Downing Street.
What’s the story?
“The Gaza-Israel ceasefire, in which so much hope rested, has all but disintegrated.”
That’s Lewis Goodall after hearing the news of a reported 404 people killed on Monday night (17 March 2025) in an Israeli airstrike on Gaza, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.
The strike marks the first assault since the ceasefire - which had been in place since January - ended on 1 March.
The country says its strikes were made on "terror targets", and the office of Benjamin Netanyahu has blamed Hamas for refusing to release remaining Israeli hostages, and says it caused a breakdown in peace talks.
Israel pledged to maintain the ceasefire if Hamas released the hostages, but Hamas refused to do so until troops left the country, and peace talks progressed.
Neyanyahu’s office said that Israel will, “from now on, act against Hamas with increasing military strength.”
President Trump gave the “green light” for Israel to renew military action, an Israeli spokesperson told the Wall Street Journal, adding that he came to the decision because Hamas refused to release more hostages.
“It was always going to be difficult to get to phase two in the ceasefire plan, but last night, it more or less came to an end,” says Jon Sopel.
“The prospects of peace are dismal. The prospects for the remaining hostages being held who were taken after October the seventh, equally dismal.
“And the prospect for Gazans starting to rebuild their lives and trying to get back to something that looks like a livelihood again, dismal.”
What next for Israel and Gaza?
Jon says it’s unsurprising to see Israel strike Gaza, because there aren’t a lot of “good policy options” on the table for Netanyahu if a ceasefire continues.
“He can pull out of Gaza, withdraw all Israeli forces – and potentially see Hamas rebuild, recruit, rearm, and perhaps launch another 7 October style attack,” he says.
“This is what Hamas have said they would do again and again in their bid to destroy the State of Israel.”
Lewis Goodall says that with the backing of the Trump administration, Benjamin Netanyahu now sees a “window” in which he can resume the war.
"Trump managed to pull a ceasefire deal off – but it's equally now Trump who is giving the Israelis the green light to go ahead and totally undermine that, and leave the ceasefire in tatters," Jon says.
"There are 59 hostages, which are said to still be there, although many think that up to half could be dead."
Jon says there is almost no chance of a resuming the ceasefire after the events of this week.
"The IDF and the Israeli government have made clear that this is just the start of a broader incursion, a broader set of attacks, which will take place, continue and sustain until such time as those 59 hostages are sent back to Israel."
Lewis says the whole situation feels "utterly desperate".
"The humanitarian situation in Gaza, the Israeli families who want to get their loved ones back and feel that every move by the Israeli government is probably making it less likely. The whole situation is desperate."
"The innocents in all of this will, of course, continue to be the civilians, the Gazans who have been living in hell for pretty much 18 months, who are now staring down the barrel of hell resuming day after day after day."
He says that "hell" had already been there, to some extent, before this week's strikes.
"Israel decided a few weeks ago to resume the blockade of food and medicine, the Gazans say they've got about three weeks worth of essential humanitarian supplies.
"If that blockade is not lifted in the near future, once again, you're going to be looking at the prospect, once more, of famine and disease. Hell in the Gaza Strip once again."
What’s been the UK response?
While America has given Israel the green light to recommence its assaults, in the UK, foreign secretary David Lammy has condemned Israel for resuming its blocking of aid into Gaza.
He said in the House of Commons that while Israel "quite rightly must defend its own security”, the blockade of aid to the Gaza Strip is a "breach of international law" - a strong statement, and one that the UK government had avoided saying before that moment.
The comments did not go down well with 10 Downing Street, as less than 24 hours later the a spokesperson for the PM rowed back from Lammy’s comments, saying that the UK government’s position remains that Israel is “at a clear risk of a breach”, which, Lewis points out “is clearly different”.
In spite of many humanitarian organisations echoing Lammy’s comments, being “slapped down” by Number 10, who said those comments do not reflect the government, was “very unusual and pretty embarrassing” for him.
“The interesting thing about it was that if you listen to the way Lammy spoke, it wasn't like he got his words mangled. He knew exactly what it was – it was very deliberate,” Jon adds.
“I'm intrigued as to the power play that's going on now between the foreign office and Number 10 over this and whether any American involvement has come in to say, ‘You need to soften that, you don't want to be saying that about Israel.”
Lammy’s comment that Israel was breaching international law on humanitarian aid, Lewis points out, was made before the recent Israeli strike, which makes the question only more “acute” now.
“If these strikes are now going to resume and the war is going to resume, then the humanitarian blockade becomes an even more serious question than it did even 24 hours ago.”
“This difference between Lammy and Number 10, in a British political context, could become quite difficult for Starmer quite quickly.”
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