Friday, 31 October 2025

US politicians call for Trump to act on 'unspeakable atrocities' in Sudan.

Extract from ABC News

A woman wearing a hijab resting on a carpet in an outdoors makeshift camp.

Thousands are displaced after a paramilitary group attacked the Darfur city of El-Fasher. (AP: Mohammed Abaker)

In short:

US politicians from both sides of politics are calling for the Trump administration to act on a growing humanitarian crisis in Sudan.

The UN is calling for a halt to fighting after reports 460 people were killed in a maternity hospital by paramilitary forces.

Eyewitnesses in the town of El-Fasher say they saw "dead bodies in the streets" as they attempted to flee.

Republican and Democratic US senators are calling for a strong response from President Donald Trump's administration after the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces seized new territory in Sudan, reportedly attacking civilians.

The growing calls came as the UN chief Antonio Guterres called for an end to the violence, after reports that more than 460 people were shot dead in a maternity hospital in the recently seized city of El-Fasher.

Republican Senator Jim Risch of Idaho, chairperson of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, called for the US to officially designate the RSF as a foreign terrorist organisation.

"The horrors in Darfur's El-Fasher were no accident — they were the RSF's plan all along," he said in a statement on X on Tuesday.

"The RSF has waged terror and committed unspeakable atrocities, genocide among them, against the Sudanese people."

A man wearing glasses sitting at a US senate committee.

Senator Jim Risch says the Trump administration should act to stop further violence in Sudan. (Reuters: Al Drago)

On Wednesday, Senator Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, the committee's top Democrat, said she most likely would back such a response from Washington. 

Asked whether she would back an FTO designation, Ms Shaheen told reporters, "Probably," but added she would like to take a longer look at the issue.

Ms Shaheen criticised the United Arab Emirates, which is accused by the Sudanese army of providing military support to the RSF. The UAE denies those allegations.

"The UAE has been an irresponsible player who has contributed to one of the worst humanitarian crises that we have on the planet right now," she said.

Two children riding donkeys with hay bales through a dusty and dry desert.

In a report earlier this week, the UN said the RSF's actions may be "consistent with war crimes and crimes against humanity". (AP: Muhnnad Adam)

In an emailed statement, the UAE Strategic Communications Department said the UAE has consistently supported efforts to achieve a ceasefire, protect civilians and ensure accountability for violations and rejected claims it provided any form of support to either warring party.

"The latest UN Panel of Experts report makes clear that there is no substantiated evidence that the UAE has provided any support to RSF, or has any involvement in the conflict," the statement said.

UN plea after mass hospital killings

The war in Sudan erupted in April 2023 from a power struggle between the army and the RSF, unleashing waves of ethnic violence, creating the world's worst humanitarian crisis and plunging several areas into famine. 

Tens of thousands of people have since been killed and about 13 million displaced.

The UN migration agency said over 36,000 have reportedly fled El-Fasher since Sunday.

The State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment on its plans for designating the RSF.

UN chief Antonio Guterres called for an immediate end to military escalation in Sudan on Thursday after reports about the hospital killings emerged.

The World Health Organisation said the hospital was on Sunday "attacked for the fourth time in a month, killing one nurse and injuring three other health workers". 

Two days later, "six health workers, four doctors, a nurse and a pharmacist, were abducted" and "more than 460 patients and their companions were reportedly shot and killed in the hospital," the organisation said.

The AP and other news agencies have not been able to independently confirm the hospital attack and death toll, given the chaos and the challenges in communicating with those still there.

Mohammad Hamdan Daglo, the head of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitaries which recently seized the city of El-Fasher from army forces, has vowed the country would be unified by "peace or through war".

The capture of El-Fasher, the last army holdout in the vast western region of Darfur, comes after more than 18 months of brutal siege, sparking fears of a return to the ethnically targeted atrocities of 20 years ago.

In January, the administration of Trump's Democratic predecessor, then-President Joe Biden said it determined that members of the RSF and allied militias committed genocide in Sudan and imposed sanctions on the group's leader, Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti.

The RSF denied harming civilians.

'Dead bodes in the streets'

Harrowing accounts of violence have begun to emerge from El-Fasher since the RSF captured the town.

In satellite phone interviews with news agency AFP, three survivors who reached a nearby town of Tawila described scenes of terror and loss during their escape from El-Fasher, cut off from food, medicine and other aid through 18 months of siege.

The survivors' full names have been withheld for their safety.

Hayat, a mother of five, said RSF fighters entered her home on Saturday morning, local time, and killed her 16-year-old son. 

"On the road between El-Fasher and Garni (a village northwest of the city), we saw many dead bodies lying on the ground and wounded people left behind in the open because their families couldn't carry them," she said.

"Along the way, we were robbed again and the young men travelling with us were stopped. We don't know what happened to them."

A man lying in an open tent with a bandage around his leg.

Many were forced to flee as paramilitary forces killed hundreds of people in El-Fasher, which had been under seige for 18 months. (AP: Mohammed Abaker)

Hussein, a survivor who fled from the city on Saturday morning, said he and others escaped with only "the clothes we were wearing".

"The situation in El-Fasher is so terrible — dead bodies in the streets, and no one to bury them."

Mohamed, a father of four, also said he was robbed as he fled along the road out of El-Fasher and witnessed "dead bodies, some already turned to bones", on the route.

"They beat me on my back with sticks, and I already had shrapnel in my leg from a shell that fell near our home in Zamzam."

AFP/Reuters

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After 90 years of serving the community, ABC Gippsland remains tuned in to help.

Extract from ABC News

By Madeleine Stuchbery and Rachael Lucas
Roadside sign on a trailer saying TUNE TO ABC. There are gum trees along the side of the road.

Emergency broadcasting is a key priority of the ABC. (ABC News: Peter Somerville)

In short:

ABC Gippsland is celebrating 90 years on the airwaves as the official emergency broadcaster for the region. 

Established just three years after the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, ABC Gippsland has been a presence in Central Gippsland since 1935. 

What's next?

The ABC Gippsland team reflects on its emergency coverage during Black Summer and Hazelwood mine fire. 

As ABC Gippsland celebrates its 90th birthday, those behind the microphones have shared their key memories — from the heartwarming to the heartbreaking.

When the 2019-20 Black Summer bushfires blazed across East Gippsland, breakfast radio host Mim Hook was among those called in to duty.

It was the beginning of an almost seven-hour-long stint of emergency broadcasting and one of the most intense experiences of her life.

What listeners may not know is in between airing messages from people in danger, Ms Hook was also scrambling to make sure her own children were protected.

It is an example of the countless events covered by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's Gippsland bureau, in its role as the official emergency broadcaster.

A child wears a facemask and steers a boat on the water with the red-orange sky behind them.

This image became an emblem of Australia's fire crisis. (Supplied)

Personal and professional 

The now-iconic images of thousands of people on the East Gippsland coastline at Mallacoota fleeing to the beach under a bright red sky are etched in many people's minds.

In those moments, the role of the ABC, Ms Hook said, was not only to inform the listeners, but to engage with them and offer them a calm companion amid the chaos.

"Because I'm from East Gippsland, I have friends and family who were evacuating, who didn't know if their houses were still standing," Ms Hook said.

"So it was personal, as well as trying to be as professional as possible.

"I remember a farmer calling in on his truck radio, to try and get the message out that he and his family were OK.

"I had one woman sending me voice memos through Facebook and then I would play that voice memo on the radio."

Image of a navy helicopter with people running towards it, the water in the background.

Jonathan Kendall and his family were evacuated by navy helicopter during the Black Summer bushfires in 2019.  (Supplied: Jonathan Kendall)

'It's a serious thing'

During the Black Summer fires, Jonathan Kendall and his family were evacuated via navy helicopter from Gabo Island near Mallacoota, as the blaze took hold.

But it was not his first close call with disaster.

Mr Kendall started his tenure at ABC Gippsland in early 2014, in the fallout of the Hazelwood mine fire.

Burning for a month and blanketing the Latrobe Valley in smoke, the Hazelwood mine fire triggered a government inquiry and affected the health of locals for years to come. 

The fire burned inside the mine for 45 days and shrouded Morwell and surrounding towns in acrid smoke and ash.

"I was covering the immediate aftermath, then all the studies that went on for about 10 years after the fire," Mr Kendall said.

"There was a lot of anger in the community after that, and people wanted to know how something like that could happen, and how it's going to be stopped in the future. And fair enough, it was a pretty big asset in the community that had just been on fire for 45 days."

Beyond the drought and rain 

Former Bundalaguah resident and radio historian, John Schroeder, grew up listening to the ABC news in the family home, building his own crystal set radio receiver at 11 years old.

ABC Gippsland — originally known as 3GI — was one of the first ABC stations to construct a transmitter site.

Mr Schroeder said that the ABC became part of life in Gippsland and became one of the very first stations in the ABC to broadcast a rural program in the "dead time" of the early morning.

"What it did was it got the farmers to listen to the station in the morning, and as a result many farmers put radio receivers in their dairies, so that they could hear what was going on when they were milking. So it was a pioneering effort," he said.

Picture of a man wearing a grey long sleeved shirt and glasses with his collection of vintage radios.

John Schroeder has a collection of vintage radios.  (ABC News: Rachael Lucas)

The Black Friday fires of 1939 gave rise to the ABC's role during emergencies, and the ABC would also become synonymous with the tradition of listening to coverage of the cricket.

"They broadcast a lot of classical music and at lunchtime we had a serial on called Blue Hills. Blue Hills more or less depicted country life as it was, and everyone could listen in and imagine themselves in that situation," Mr Schroeder said. 

"It had an enormous following and was one of the longest-running radio serials in the world, running for 27 years."

woman walking through flood waters near jetty

Kellie Lazzaro reporting on the Lakes Entrance floods in 2007. (Supplied: Darren Chester)

Strong past, strong future

As the longest-serving current member of the ABC Gippsland team, Kellie Lazzaro proudly provides a roll call of colleagues who have served the region over the past 25 years.

"At the risk of singling out a few, Samantha Donovan, who presents ABC Radio's PM program, started here as our Mornings presenter," Ms Lazzaro said.

"Rachael Brown, who has become one of Australia's most acclaimed crime and court reporters, bringing us the award-winning Trace podcast, and the Mushroom Case Daily podcast, came to Sale as a new cadet to work with us."

black and white photo of group standing in front of ABC Gippsland building in 1995

Mark DeBono, fourth from left, at ABC Gippsland's York street station on April 2, 1995.  (Supplied: ABC Gippsland)

And in a nod to his contribution to ABC Gippsland over many years, a plaque for Mark DeBono will be unveiled on one of the ABC studio doors at the York Street site.

"Before his retirement in 2020, Mark was the voice of ABC Gippsland news, steering listeners through countless fires, floods and storms," Ms Lazzaro said.

"It's an honour to recognise his service in this way."

Ms Lazzaro said ABC Gippsland held a fond place in the hearts of many of her former colleagues who still referred to it as the best place they had ever worked, due to the positive team culture that had been developed over many years.

"We take pride in knowing our patch, and bringing stories that matter to Gippsland, even when they are difficult to tell," she said.

"And don't worry — our audience holds us to account if we don't get it right."

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Democrats are 'fighting fire with fire' in California. Is a political inferno coming for American democracy?

Extract from ABC News 

Analysis

"We're fighting fire with fire," California Governor Gavin Newsom said last month at an online campaign event in support of Proposition 50, also being referred to as the Election Rigging Response Act.

"We're not fighting with one hand tied behind our back."

Newsom's choice of metaphor feels appropriate amid a red-hot debate about the state of American democracy, as he campaigns for voters to approve a set of gerrymandered maps: maps drawn with the goal of gaining an advantage.

In this case, the goal is to hand the Democrats more seats in congress.

It's an audacious move to ask voters to tilt the election battleground in your favour, but recent polls indicate the proposition will most likely pass, including a CBS/YouGov poll which found 62 per cent support.

And it'll pass with Democrats claiming the moral high ground, because this is a tit-for-tat move, designed to neutralise Republicans who did much the same thing in Texas earlier this year.

"If Californians don't pass Prop 50 on November 4th, Donald Trump will rig the 2026 election and steal control of Congress," the Yes campaign's official website declares.

America, Are You Ok: Can you Rig an Election?

A 'race to the bottom'

Maps are ordinarily redrawn every 10 years after the census, but in July, Republicans launched an extraordinary mid-cycle bid to change Texas' map, notionally handing themselves up to five extra seats.

It improves Republican chances of maintaining control of the House of Representatives after next year's mid-term elections.

There is plainly no way to view the Republican manoeuvres in Texas as anything other than the people in power manipulating the rules of the game for the purposes of entrenching and growing their power.

They're not even pretending otherwise, given that President Donald Trump told CNBC in August that "We have a really good governor, and we have good people in Texas … and we are entitled to five more seats."

"It's not usual to have re-districting happen in the middle of a decade," UCLA law professor Richard Hasen says. "It does happen occasionally, but this is 100 per cent driven by Donald Trump's attempt to try to fight against what many people see as inevitable, which is Republicans losing control of the House of Representatives.

"It really is a race to the bottom."

The maps have passed, although they're now facing a court challenge, and the saga has triggered what feels like a widespread gerrymandering arms race. Missouri and North Carolina have also changed their districts, and Trump has pressured other Republican-run states, while Democratic governors have indicated an intent to do the same.

This, by the way, is all perfectly legal. The country has always had a decentralised election system that hands significant power to set the rules of the contest to officials at the state and county level, who are typically partisan.

When the Supreme Court ruled on it in 2019, it explicitly permitted states to gerrymander their congressional districts for the purposes of advantaging one side.

And so, an electoral system that implicitly permits shenanigans is now coming up against a highly polarised political culture, and politicians with an increasing penchant for shenanigans.

It makes political sense for Democrats, confronted with what they see as a real threat that they'd be shut out of power, and an undermining of their democracy, to respond in this way.

Not fighting fire with fire would seem to be tantamount to giving up.

But fires can easily jump containment lines.

If everyone is brandishing flames, it seems inevitable that someone will get burnt.

"At the very least, it undermines people's confidence that the rules are fair," Hasen says. "Everybody's being accused of rigging the election or cheating … I mean, the language is very heated."

What damage will be done to American democracy if an uncontrolled inferno breaks out?

Richard Hasen

Richard Hasen, University of California, Los Angeles says "we're in a race to the bottom" when it comes to gerrymandering.  (ABC News: Tobias Hunt)

Democrats are claiming the moral high ground

Grant Reeher, a political science professor at Syracuse University, says an increased pace of partisan gerrymandering is not good for democracy.

"If this is explicitly undemocratic, then is leaning into that somehow okay, because the other side is doing it?" Reeher says.

"That doesn't make the Republicans right in what they did, but it diminishes, I think, the high ground for the Democrats."

As the congressional map has become increasingly gerrymandered, the number of competitive seats in congress has shrunk. It has contributed to politicians being entrenched in their positions and less accountable to voters.

This extraordinary mid-decade round of gerrymandering raises the prospect of it going into hyper-drive.

"The big question is, where does it stop? If we're going to do it for 2026, are we going to do it again for 2028 and for 2030?" Reeher says.

"If the American way of doing this is a problem, then you're just putting it on steroids by doing it over and over again throughout a decade rather than just going through the jolt every 10 years." 

The gerrymandering catch-22

Polling consistently shows that gerrymandering is unpopular among voters. Even many politicians will tell you they'd prefer it wasn't a feature of their political system.

The trouble is, the people who can change it are precisely the same people who benefit from the system as it stands: members of congress.

And no one will unilaterally lay down arms, because why would they?

"Congress has the power to make or alter any rules related to the running of congressional elections," Hasen says. "Congress could say, 'You can't engage in partisan gerrymandering', and they could define it.

"The problem is that there's no political will to do it, and so I'm afraid the race to the bottom is not going to be solved until there's some change in who controls the government."

Something that is made ever more unlikely, the more that partisan gerrymandering occurs.

Donald Trump gesturing with both hands as he answers questions from reporters at the White House.

President Donald Trump has talked of trying to ban postal voting and in-person voting machines and has shown little regard for legal barriers and court decisions he disagrees with. (AP: Evan Vucci)

A hard cycle to break

Reeher says that we might see this wave of gerrymandering die down if one side of politics manages to pull off a big win.

As long as the congress is controlled on a razor-tight margin, the temptation is there to hunt for whatever advantage you can find in the congressional maps. If one side were to win with a more significant margin, you wouldn't be able to gerrymander your way to victory.

But this is far from the only thing undermine Americans' faith in elections.

"The biggest concern … is that the American public will no longer have a baseline level of trust in the voting system," Reeher says. "That would be existential."

Trump has talked of trying to ban postal voting and in-person voting machines and has shown little regard for legal barriers and court decisions he disagrees with.

"I think in the short term, things are looking very bad," Hasen says. "The question is, is America going to remain a democracy?"

"I'm hoping that as we come out of the next five to 10 years that there actually would be a movement towards improving democracy in the United States.

"But I think we're really at a pivot point. And we'll see how things go in the 2026 and 2028 elections to see if American democracy can survive this current moment."

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Attracted to 'shiny' objects, children in Gaza mistake unexploded bombs for toys.

Extract from ABC News

Annika Burgess with wires 
A young Palestinian boy with bandaged leg and hand in a hospital bed with a woman in black perched next to him.

Yahya Shorbasi and his twin sister remain in hospital after being injured by unexploded ordnance in Gaza City. (AP: Abdel Kareem Hana)

In short:

Aid groups estimate more than 7,000 tonnes of unexploded ordnance may be hidden under rubble in Gaza.

They say it could take up to 30 years to clear Gaza's surface from the explosive remnants of war. 

What's next?

Bomb clearing specialists are trying to gain immediate access to scale up teams operating in Gaza. 

Yahya and his twin sister Nabila were playing in the ruins of their house in Gaza City when they came across a round object.

Their grandfather Tawfiq Shorbasi said they thought it was a toy.

When they reached for it, all it took was one touch and it went off.

Now the six-year-olds are lying in hospital beds, severely injured by what has been described as unexploded ordnance.

"Their lives have been ruined forever," Mr Shorbasi said.

A young Palestinian girl lies in a hospital bed with bandages on her head and tubes in her mouth.

Nabila Shorbasi was injured by an unexploded ordnance along with her twin brother Yahya. (AP: Abdel Kareem Hana)

Like many Palestinians, the twins' family seized the chance to return to what was left of their home after the ceasefire came into effect on October 10.

People have been sifting through rubble searching for belongings, and for bodies unreachable until now. 

But the dangers are far from over.

United Nations specialists estimate about 7,500 tonnes of unexploded munitions may be strewn across Gaza. 

a road in gaza in between two tall destroyed buildings and rubble lay on the ground

The UN has warned that unexploded ordnance in rubble and damaged buildings pose deadly risks. (Reuters: Dawoud Abu Alkas)

A British emergency physician and paediatrician working at one of the hospitals treating the twins said their injuries included a lost hand, a hole in the bowel, broken bones, and potential loss of a leg.

Dr Harriet, who declined to give her last name because she was not authorised by her employer to speak to the media, said the children were in a relatively stable condition after emergency surgery.

But concerns remain for their recovery due to the lack of medicine and medical supplies in Gaza.

"Now it's just a waiting game, so I hope that they both survive," she told Associated Press.

"But at this point in time, I can't say, and this is a common recurrence.

"This is the death trap … we're talking about a ceasefire, but the killing hasn't stopped."

Thousands of tonnes of unexploded bombs

The United Nations Mine Action Service (UNMAS) estimates, based on munition failure rates, that between one in 10 and one in 20 weapons fired into Gaza have not gone off.

Other bomb disposal experts, such as Mines Advisory Group director of programmes Greg Crowther, believe the failure rate may be higher than one in 10 in urban centres.

He said bombs did not always detonate when piercing through multi-storey buildings — especially ones that were already damaged.

By October 2024, Israel's military said it had already carried out more than 40,000 air strikes on the Gaza Strip.

Since then, large-scale Israeli bombing has continued, including across Gaza City in mid-September.

There have also been ground strikes and remnants left by Hamas and its allies.

A Palestinian child walks past a mural warning against approaching unexploded ordnance.

A Palestinian child walks past a mural warning against approaching unexploded ordnance in Gaza. (Reuters: Dawoud Abu Alkas)

The HALO Trust Middle East director Nicholas Torbet, whose NGO specialised in clearing explosives, said "every single part" of Gaza had been hit by ordnance.

"The sheer scale and amount of it across Gaza is a real risk to civilians," he said in an interview with Al Jazeera.

Gaza's Health Ministry, operating under the Hamas-run government, said five children had been wounded by unexploded ordnance in the past week, including one in the southern city of Khan Younis.

UNMAS said there was "no clear figure" on the number of people injured or killed by unexploded ordnance in Gaza.

The organisation had documented 52 Palestinians killed and 267 others wounded since the war began in October 2023, but said the toll could be much higher.

UNMAS Palestinian territories head Luke Irving said the organisation recorded an average of two deaths per day during the ceasefire in January.

Kilometres of destroyed buildings and rubble. In the distance are three tall circular structures

Destruction can be seen across northern Gaza, with Israel in the distance. (ABC News: Hamish Harty)

John Shanahan, a former commander of the ADF's counter-improvised explosive device task force and managing director of mine detection technology firm MRead, said threats would be everywhere.

He said explosive remnants of war would be hidden under rubble and inside buildings, often resembling regular objects and debris.

"Kids are attracted to them because they are shiny," Mr Shanahan told the ABC.

"What is safe and what is hazardous … [is] often very difficult to see."

Clearance could take 30 years

Humanity & Inclusion explosive ordnance disposal expert Nick Orr said clearing the surface of Gaza could take "20 to 30 years".

He described the enclave as a "horrific, unmapped minefield".

Mr Orr, who has been to Gaza several times during the conflict, is part of his organisation's seven-person team set to begin identifying war remnants in essential infrastructure such as hospitals and bakeries this week.

"If you're looking at a full clearance, it's never happening, it's subterranean," he said. 

"We will find it for generations to come."

There are several issues that make clearing Gaza particularly challenging.

It was a dense urban area, with narrow streets and damage to nearly every building, Mr Shanahan said.

"That means limited access for machinery and high risk of secondary collapse," he said.

A boy pushes a wheelchair through the rubble.

A boy pushes a wheelchair through the rubble of buildings destroyed in Gaza City. (AP: Abdel Kareem Hana)

Mr Irving told a United Nations briefing last week that 560 unexploded ordnance items were found during the current ceasefire, with many more under the rubble. 

"As expected, we're now finding more items because we're getting out more; the teams have more access," he said.

Two years of war had left up to 60 million tonnes of debris across Gaza, he said.

Mountains of rubble and high-tech weapons

Mr Shanahan said it would be difficult to detect munitions buried under the rubble with available technology.

And removing the layers of debris comes with its own set of risks.

"There has been the use of the full range of weapons systems," he said.

"You have unexploded aircraft bombs, tank rounds, artillery, air-dropped precision munitions that failed to function, plus improvised hazards."

A man stands a trail in front ofa sign warning about landmines in different languages.

John Shanahan has been involved in mine-clearing operations in several countries, including Angola.  (Supplied)

Some weapons systems detonate with a pressure-activated trigger.

But more modern munitions can be fitted with sensors and do not even need to be touched to explode.

Mr Shanahan said Israel could have used a "new" weapon, or "high-tech US" munitions. 

"These are all modern munitions," he said.

"It is far more complex than we've encountered up to now."

Teams push for greater access

The UN and various international explosive clearance teams are hoping to rapidly scale up operations. 

The HALO Trust is calling for immediate access in Gaza for at least 100 experts.

Mr Irving from UNMAS said the whole sector needed to scale up. 

"I'm pushing very hard as a lead for UNMAS to make sure people can get in, other organisations can get in, and we all make sure we're efficient at hitting the areas [where] we need to have maximum benefit for people as life returns to normal," he said.

Educating locals about the risks of explosive ordnance and how to identify them is among the top priorities. 

Mr Irving said teams would also be mapping out high-risk areas, as well as key roads and neighbourhoods.

The UN, The HALO Trust and various organisations have been pushing for more funding to sustain efforts now and into the future.

Mr Shanahan said large-scale explosive disposal efforts could be very successful, but it depended on donor funding.

"Compared to where we've operated before, like Angola, Gaza is incredibly complex," he said.

"The donor levels required for these tasks are on another level — you're not talking a few million here and there, you're talking vast amounts of money."

ABC/Wires

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Thursday, 30 October 2025

Israeli air strikes kill 104 in Gaza, Trump insists ceasefire will hold.

Extract from ABC News

People walk through rubble around a damaged building

Palestinians inspect the site of an overnight Israeli strike on a house in Gaza City on Wednesday. (Reuters: Ebrahim Hajjaj)

In short:

Gaza's Hamas-run health authorities say 104 people have been killed in Israeli air strikes in the past day.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered strikes after accusing Hamas of killing a soldier and breaching the two-week-old ceasefire.  

What's next?

The Middle East truce brokered by the US appears shaky but Donald Trump says he is is confident the pact will hold. 

The Israeli military said on Wednesday that it would abide by a ceasefire accord in Gaza, as health officials in the enclave said IDF air strikes had killed 104 people, with both sides trading blame for violations of the deal.

Israel launched air strikes in Gaza late on Tuesday, local time, saying it acted after an attack by Palestinian militants killed one soldier, in the latest challenge to an already fragile ceasefire.

The Israeli military said in a statement that it would continue to uphold the ceasefire agreement and would respond firmly to "any violation".

Ceasefire not at risk, Trump says

US President Donald Trump said that the US-backed ceasefire was not at risk, even as Israeli planes struck across Gaza, with Israel and militant group Hamas blaming each other for breaches of the truce.

The Gaza health ministry said that 46 children and 20 women were among the 104 people killed in Israeli strikes since Tuesday. 

"As I understand it, they took out an Israeli soldier," Mr Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One. 

"So the Israelis hit back and they should hit back. When that happens, they should hit back."

The Israeli military confirmed the soldier's death on Wednesday.

"Nothing is going to jeopardise" the ceasefire, Mr Trump said. 

"You have to understand Hamas is a very small part of peace in the Middle East, and they have to behave."

Israel says Hamas attacked soldiers within 'yellow line'

Some displaced Palestinians feared the truce was falling apart. 

Ismail Zayda, 40, a father of three children, recalled the sounds of explosions throughout the night, a reminder of a war that has killed tens of thousands.

"It was one of the worst nights since the ceasefire was signed. The sounds of explosions and planes made us feel as if war had started again," Zayda, who lives in tents in western Gaza City with his 25-member family, told Reuters via a chat app.

Rows of people line a truck filled with white shrouds

Mourners pray during the funeral of members of the Abu Dalal family, who were killed in an overnight Israeli strike on their home, according to medics, in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip.   (Reuters: Mahmoud Issa)

An Israeli military official said Hamas had violated the ceasefire by carrying out an attack against Israeli forces who were stationed within the so-called "yellow line", the deployment line agreed upon in the ceasefire.

Hamas denied responsibility for the attack on Israeli forces in Rafah, in southern Gaza, and said in a statement that it remained committed to the ceasefire deal.

The agreement went into effect on October 10, halting two years of war triggered by deadly Hamas-led attacks on Israel on October 7, 2023.

Accord involves return of hostage remains

Under the accord, Hamas released all living hostages in return for nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners and wartime detainees, while Israel pulled back its troops and halted its offensive.

Hamas also agreed to hand over the remains of all dead hostages yet to be recovered, but has said that it will take time to locate and retrieve all of the bodies. 

Israel says the militant group can access the remains of most of the hostages.

The issue has become one of the main sticking points in the ceasefire, which Mr Trump says he is watching closely.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said human remains handed over on Monday night belonged to an Israeli killed during Hamas's October 7 attack, whose body was recovered by Israeli forces in the early weeks of fighting.

The Israeli military said that Hamas had planted the remains at an excavation site before calling in a Red Cross team and pretending it had found a missing hostage, to create a "false impression of efforts to locate bodies".

A 14-minute video published by the military showed three men placing a white bag at an excavation site and then covering it with earth and rocks.

Reuters was able to independently confirm the location of the video, but was unable to verify the date of the video or Israel's account of what the video showed.

Hamas did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The ICRC said its team was unaware that the remains had been planted at the site before their arrival.

"It is unacceptable that a fake recovery was staged, when so much depends on this agreement being upheld and when so many families are still anxiously awaiting news of their loved ones," the ICRC said in a statement.

Reuters

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