ISRAEL announced the Gaza ceasefire was back today after its military had killed 104 people, including 46 children, in heavy air strikes last night.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he had ordered the strikes, the deadliest since the ceasefire began on October 10, because Hamas was violating the ceasefire agreement by handing over body parts this week that Israel said were the partial remains of a hostage recovered earlier in the war.

He said that was compounded by the fatal shooting of an Israeli soldier during an exchange of gunfire in the southern Gaza city of Rafah.

US President Donald Trump, on a tour of Asia, defended the attack, claiming Israel was justified after Hamas killed the Israeli soldier, who also held US citizenship.

Hamas denied any involvement in the deadly shooting however and accused Israel of “a blatant violation of the ceasefire deal.”

The airstrikes reveal “a clear Israeli intention to undermine the ceasefire agreement and impose new realities by force,” the Palestinian resistance group said in a statement, noting that the US was offering Mr Netanyahu “political cover” to continue his aggression in Gaza.

Hamas warned it would delay the handover of another hostage’s body to Israel because of the strikes.

Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Oren Marmorstein said Washington had been informed about the strikes and that they had been carried out in full co-ordination with the US.

Israel is accusing Hamas of intentionally delaying the return of the dead hostages, but Hamas insists it is struggling to locate their bodies amid the vast destruction in Gaza.

Mr Marmorstein claimed that Hamas is also “trying to do everything possible to avoid” disarming.

Speaking on board Air Force One, Mr Trump told journalists that Israel “should hit back” when its troops come under attack, while adding he remained confident that the ceasefire would withstand the escalation in violence because “Hamas is a very small part of the overall Middle East peace. And they have to behave.”

If not, they will be “terminated,” the US president threatened.

The overall death toll of 104 came from the Palestinian Health Ministry, which reported that 253 people had also been wounded, most of them women and children.

More than 68,500 Palestinians have been killed since the October 7 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel that triggered the conflict, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.