GAZA — Hamas accused Israel on Sunday of deliberately escalating its attacks on the Gaza Strip to derail understandings reached with mediators and the US administration on completing implementation of the ceasefire agreement.In a statement, the Palestinian group said Israeli attacks since Sunday morning killed more than 19 Palestinians and “wiped out” entire families.The bombardment constituted “a deliberate escalation by the government of war criminal Netanyahu, aimed at obstructing the understandings reached with the mediators, including the US administration, to complete the implementation of the ceasefire agreement,” it said.From dawn, Israeli warplanes hit Gaza City in the north, the central city of Deir Al-Balah and the southern area of Khan Younis, causing the biggest daily death toll in weeks, according to Palestinian health officials.US President Donald Trump announced on Thursday Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups agreed to disarm in what he described as a “monumental step” toward peace and security in the shattered enclave.Hamas called on the mediators and guarantors of the ceasefire agreement to “assume their responsibilities,” condemn the Israeli attacks and “immediately” pressure Israel to halt its assaults and comply with the agreement.The group described the attacks as acts that “amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity,” and called on the international community to take legal action to hold Israeli leaders accountable.It also urged measures to protect Palestinians, who it said continued to face “the threat of genocide and displacement.”The deaths on Sunday included three people killed in an air raid on a residential apartment in Al-Sousi Tower in western Gaza City, according to medical sources at Al-Shifa Hospital.An attack on an apartment in al-Qarara, northwest of the city of Khan Younis, killed three members of the Al-Hams family. Three others were wounded, medical sources at Nasser Hospital said.A couple were killed in an attack on their home near Deir el-Balah in central Gaza, medics said. In the same area, two brothers were killed as they rode a motorbike.In northern Gaza, a Palestinian was killed after being directly targeted in the Jabalia refugee camp.In al-Mawasi, Khan Younis, one Palestinian was killed, and five others were wounded in an Israeli attack on a tent.Two Palestinians, including one, were killed in an Israeli drone attack on a tent for displaced people in the Remal neighborhood, west of Gaza City. Four others were killed in a strike on a vehicle in Gaza City.The Israeli attacks since dawn caused the largest daily death toll in weeks, according to Palestinian health officials.On Saturday, an Israeli attack hit medicine warehouses attached to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir el-Balah.Gaza Health Ministry’s director-general, Munir al-Bursh, said that destroying supplies “turns medicine and illness itself into a tool of war”. The ministry reported that two facilities were destroyed and two were severely damaged.This came as the Board of Peace and the International Stabilization Force — oversight entities established under Washington’s 20-point Gaza peace plan — and Trump announced an agreement on Friday to implement the next phase of the Gaza “ceasefire”, with the board saying Hamas had accepted a detailed roadmap. Palestinians say Israel’s continued attacks, coupled with restrictions on humanitarian aid despite the so-called ceasefire, have turned the truce into “an illusion” and further deepened their humanitarian crisis.The killings follow a similar pattern to previous deals that existed only on paper and had no grounding in reality, such as the repeated ceasefires in Lebanon since 2024 and last October’s ceasefire in Gaza. All have been largely ignored by Israel, which has been accused of deliberately sabotaging them.Since the October 2025 “ceasefire”, mediated by Qatar, Egypt and the US, at least 1,222 Palestinians have been killed and 4,053 injured, according to health authorities in Gaza.Mohanad Mustafa, an academic and expert on Israeli affairs, told Al Jazeera that Israel approaches agreements from a position of non-commitment.“All these agreements were imposed on Israel. Israel did not want to go to settlements or agreements. They were imposed on Israel by another party, particularly the United States,” he said.“Israel gives different interpretations to the agreement at the level of terminology and clauses,” Mustafa said. “Therefore, it tends toward violating the agreement, claiming that its interpretation and approach differ from how the other party interprets it.”Israel has raised concerns with the United States over the proposed agreement, challenging key provisions of a roadmap that links Hamas’s disarmament to a phased Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.People familiar with the discussions told the Associated Press that Israel had also sought guarantees that it could continue conducting military operations in Gaza. Other objections concerned the participation of Qatar and Turkey in verifying compliance, and whether weapons collected from Hamas would be destroyed rather than stored by the new Palestinian administration.Israeli Energy Minister Eli Cohen separately said there was no agreement requiring Israel to suspend its attacks while the plan was being negotiated. Speaking to Israel’s Army Radio, Cohen said the government remained sceptical that Hamas would disarm and argued that Israel should take full control of Gaza if the process failed.
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