JERUSALEM – Israel carried out a second day of deadly bombings in the Gaza Strip on Saturday after a week-long ceasefire with Hamas collapsed despite international calls for an extension.

Gray clouds of smoke from the attacks hung over Gaza, where nearly 200 people have been killed since the lull in fighting ended early Friday, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

Both sides blamed each other for breaking the ceasefire. Israel claimed Hamas attempted to fire a rocket before the end of the ceasefire and failed to provide a list of additional hostages for release.

“What we are doing now is to attack Hamas military targets throughout the Gaza Strip,” Israel Defense Forces spokesman Jonathan Conricus told reporters on Saturday.

When hostilities resumed, Hamas’ armed wing “received orders to resume fighting” and “defend the Gaza Strip,” according to a source close to the group, who did not want to be named because they were not authorized to speak. to speak to the media.

International leaders and humanitarian groups condemned the return to fighting.

“I deeply regret that military operations have begun again in Gaza,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on X, formerly Twitter.

“Today, scores of people have reportedly been killed and injured in just a few hours,” said UN humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths.

“Families were again asked to evacuate. Hopes were dashed.”

Fears of a wider regional conflict grew after the Syrian Defense Ministry said Israeli strikes hit Damascus on Saturday, and the militant group Hezbollah said one of its members was killed in an Israeli attack on Lebanon on Friday.

The United States said it was working with regional partners to reach another ceasefire.

“We will continue to work with Israel, Egypt and Qatar to reinstate the pause,” US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told reporters in California on Friday.

Mediation efforts by Qatar and Egypt are underway, said a source briefed on the talks who did not want to be named.

“MOTHER OF ALL BLOWS”

In an unprecedented attack on Oct. 7, Hamas militants breached Gaza’s militarized border with Israel, killing about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapping about 240, according to Israeli authorities.

In response, Israel pledged to eliminate Hamas and launched an air and ground campaign that killed more than 15,000 people, mostly civilians, say Hamas authorities, which rule Gaza.

But in a diplomatic breakthrough, both sides agreed to a seven-day ceasefire in which Hamas released 80 Israeli hostages and more aid flowed into Gaza in exchange for 240 Palestinian prisoners.

The week of the hostage-prisoner exchange brought tearful reunions between Israeli families and their released relatives and cheers on the streets of the occupied West Bank as Palestinian prisoners were released from Israeli prisons.

Twenty-five other hostages, mostly Thais, were also released under separate agreements.

The Israeli army said Friday that five more hostages had died, bringing the total to seven, and that 136 hostages were still being held, including 17 women and children.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters in Dubai on Friday that during the ceasefire, the United States remained “very focused on getting everyone home, getting the hostages back” and “continuing the process that had been working for seven days.” .

But Israeli government spokesman Eylon Levy told reporters: “Having chosen to hold on to our women, Hamas will now take the mother of all blows.”

The Israeli military said that “ground, air and naval forces attacked terrorist targets in the north and south of the Gaza Strip, including in Khan Yunis and Rafah.”

Israeli forces carried out operations in various areas of the occupied West Bank early Saturday, according to the official Palestinian news agency Wafa.

Outside Al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza City, a man in a blue sweater roared in grief and turned his face and hands to the sky after seeing a dead boy in a body bag, AFPTV footage showed.

“What did he wrong? God, what did we do to deserve this?” he screamed.

‘HORROR MOVIE’

Guterres has warned of a “humanitarian catastrophe” in Gaza, where the United Nations says 1.7 million people are displaced and lacking food, water and other essential supplies.

“The health service is on its knees,” Rob Holden, chief emergencies official at the World Health Organization (WHO), told journalists from Gaza as explosions could be heard in the background.

“It’s like a horror movie.”

On a bed in Khan Yunis’ Nasser Hospital, Amal Abu Dagga wept, her beige veil covered in blood.

“I don’t even know what happened to my children,” she said. A relative, Jamil Abu Dagga, told AFP the family was at home when the bombs started falling.

In Israel, sirens blared in several communities near Gaza, warning of possible rocket attacks. Authorities said they were resuming security measures in the area, including closing schools.

A rocket attack destroyed a van in an Israeli community near Gaza.

“Today, Gaza is once again the most dangerous place in the world to be a child,” UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell said in a statement on Saturday.

The Israeli military released a map of “evacuation zones” in the Gaza Strip that would allow residents to “evacuate certain locations for their safety if necessary.”

SMS warnings were sent to residents of various areas of the Gaza Strip on Friday.

Israeli forces “will begin a devastating military attack on your residential area with the aim of eliminating the terrorist organization Hamas,” the warning said.

“Stay away from all military activities of any kind.”