Africa-Press – Mauritius. A weeklong cease-fire in the Gaza Strip collapsed on Friday morning, with both Israel and Hamas blaming the other for the breakdown of the fragile truce that had allowed for the exchange of scores of hostages and prisoners, and had briefly raised hopes for a more lasting halt to the fighting.
Hostilities resumed almost immediately: Shortly before the truce expired at 7 a. m. local time (midnight Eastern), Israel said it had intercepted a projectile fired from Gaza.
Moments after the deadline passed, Israel announced that it was restarting military operations, and Israeli airstrikes soon thundered again across the battered coastal strip.
As it resumed airstrikes in Gaza, the Israeli military on Friday published online a detailed map of the territory divided into scores of small zones that it said would help Palestinian residents determine if they needed to “evacuate from specific places for their safety.
The release of the map comes as Israel faces increasing international pressure, including from the United States, to curb the high civilian death toll in its war against Hamas, and suggests that Israeli forces are signaling an intention to operate in a less imprecise manner in what the military on Friday called “the next stage of the war.
The fragile truce between Israel and Hamas collapsed on Friday morning because the adversaries could not find common ground for further exchanges of hostages and prisoners, according to two Israeli officials involved in the talks.
Publicly, Israel and Hamas blamed each other for military activity that violated the weeklong cease-fire — Israel said Hamas had fired a rocket from Gaza into southern Israel, while Hamas said Israeli troop operations had resumed in northern Gaza.
But the two Israeli officials said the real reason the pause ended was a stalemate in prisoner-swap negotiations. Hamas freed another group of eight Israeli hostages on Thursday, including dual nationals from Mexico, Russia and Uruguay.
Hours later, the Israeli Prison Service announced the release of 30 Palestinian prisoners and detainees. When Alaa Abu Sunaima was jailed in Israel last year, the Gaza Strip was in a period of relative calm.
By the time he was released, it had been devastated by a relentless campaign of Israeli airstrikes and a ground invasion. Of the 240 Palestinian prisoners released so far in exchange for Israeli hostages held by Hamas, Mr.
Abu Sunaima, 18, is the only Gazan and the only person sent back to Gaza, according to lists released by Israel and the Palestinian Authority. His home is no longer inhabitable; it was badly damaged by bombing after his parents and siblings fled their home in Shokat, a village near Gaza’s southern border.
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