Key Points
- The truce between Hamas and Israel ended at 4pm AEDT on Friday.
- More than 100 hostages were exchanged for Palestinians prisoners during the truce.
- Fighting resumed following claims that the Israeli military intercepted a rocket fired from Gaza.
Israeli warplanes have resumed pounding Gaza, Palestinian civilians are fleeing for shelter and rocket sirens are blaring in southern Israel as war has resumed after a week-old truce ran out with no deal to extend it.
The seven-day pause, which began on 24 November and was extended twice, had allowed for the exchange of dozens of hostages held in Gaza for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners and facilitated the entry of humanitarian aid into the shattered coastal strip.
In the hour before the truce was set to end at 7am local time (4pm AEDT) on Friday, Israel said it intercepted a rocket fired from Gaza.
There was no immediate comment from Hamas or claim of responsibility for the launches.
"With the resumption of fighting we emphasise: The Israeli government is committed to achieving the goals of the war - to free our hostages, to eliminate Hamas, and to ensure that Gaza will never pose a threat to the residents of Israel," the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement on Friday.
Hamas was also defiant.
"What Israel did not achieve during the 50 days before the truce, it will not achieve by continuing its aggression after the truce," Ezzat El Rashq, a member of the Hamas political bureau, said on the group's website.
Hamas is a Palestinian military and political group, which has gained power in the Gaza Strip since winning legislative elections there in 2006. Its stated aim is to establish a Palestinian state, while refusing to recognise Israel's right to exist.
Hamas, in its entirety, is designated as a terrorist organisation by countries including Australia, Canada, the UK and the US. New Zealand and Paraguay list only its military wing as a terrorist group. In 2018, the United Nations General Assembly voted against a resolution condemning Hamas in its entirety as a terrorist organisation.
Palestinian media and Gaza's interior ministry reported Israeli air and artillery strikes across the enclave after the truce expired, including in Rafah, near the border with Egypt.
In Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, a Reuters witness said he could hear heavy shelling and see smoke rising in the east of the town.
People were fleeing the area to camps in the west of Khan Younis for cover, he said.
The Israeli military confirmed its jets were striking Hamas targets in Gaza.
Images on social media showed large plumes of dark smoke rising over the densely built-up Jabalia camp in Gaza.
Hundreds of Israeli hostages and Palestinians freed during truce
During the week-long truce, Hamas and other militants in Gaza released more than 100 hostages, most of them Israelis, in return forin Israel.
Virtually all of those freed were women and children, but the fact that few such hostages remained in Gaza complicated reaching a deal for a further extension.
About 140 hostages remain in Gaza, with more than 100 having been freed as part of the truce.
Qatar and Egypt had been making intensive efforts to extend the truce following the exchange on Thursday of the latest batch of eight hostages and 30 Palestinian prisoners.
Israel has sworn to annihilate Hamas, which rules Gaza, in response to the 7 October rampage by the militant group, when Israel says gunmen killed 1200 people and took 240 hostages.
Israeli hostages were released during the truce. Source: Getty, Supplied / GPO/Getty Images
The truce has allowed some humanitarian aid into Gaza after much of the coastal territory of 2.3 million people was reduced to wasteland in the Israeli assault.
More fuel and 56 trucks of Israel's defence ministry and the Palestinian Red Crescent Society said.
But deliveries of food, water, medical supplies and fuel remain far below what is needed, aid workers say.
At an emergency meeting in Amman, Jordan's King Abdullah on Thursday urged UN officials and international groups to pressure Israel to allow more aid into the beleaguered enclave, according to delegates.
