Israel Strikes Hamas With Missiles

By Mihailo S. Zekic • March 18, 2025

Israel launched strikes against Hamas targets in Gaza Monday night. This follows several weeks of Israel and Hamas negotiating a ceasefire extension. The missile strikes, according to Hamas’s Health Ministry, killed over 400 people. At the moment, the Israel Defense Forces (idf) has not restarted its ground invasion.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz have instructed the idf to take strong action against the Hamas terrorist organization in the Gaza Strip.

This follows Hamas’s repeat refusal to release our hostages, as well as its rejection of all of the proposals it has received from the U.S. Presidential Envoy Steve Witkoff and from the mediators.

The idf is, at this time, attacking targets of the Hamas terrorist organization throughout the Gaza Strip in order to achieve the objective of the war as they have been determined by the political echelon including the release of all our hostages, the living and the deceased.

Israel will, from now on, act against Hamas with increasing military strength.
—Israel Government Press Office

America’s role: The United States under President Donald Trump pressured Israel to accept the January ceasefire. Many analysts interpreted this as optics ahead of Mr. Trump’s inauguration. But the president seems to have had a change of perspective. On March 5, he gave Hamas an ultimatum to immediately release all hostages or he would give Israel license to annihilate Hamas.

Hamas has been stalling the hostage negotiations, so Israel has resumed hostilities. If the latest signals from Washington indicate anything, a full ground invasion may happen any day now.

Resurgence for Israel? President Trump was very good to Israel during his first term. When he won the presidency this past November, the Trumpet expected him to bring much-needed assistance to Israel’s security. The ceasefire deal called this into question. But it appears Mr. Trump may be letting Israel finish its job after all.

To learn more, read “The Beginning of Hamas’s End?”