• Verified reports confirm that Gaza, especially Rafah, is littered with unexploded bombs left by Israel’s months-long assault.
• Since the ceasefire, Israel has committed numerous violations, including killing civilians, blocking aid and continuing to destroy homes.
Israel’s air force has continued its deadly bombardment of Gaza despite a ceasefire agreement and the exchange of Israeli prisoners of war and over 2,000 Palestinian hostages, labelled “prisoners”. On 19 October 2025 in Rafah, at least 97 Palestinians, including children, were killed. It marked yet another episode in Israel’s long history of violating truces and ceasefire agreements. This time, the Netanyahu government blamed the Palestinian resistance, claiming two of its soldiers had died in an “attack by Hamas”. Reuters confirmed that the strikes came despite an already fragile truce, during which aid convoys were blocked at the border until Washington applied pressure.
Following US intervention, Israel announced that “aid deliveries will resume”, yet less than a tenth of promised humanitarian supplies have actually reached Gaza. The United Nations has warned that starvation is now widespread, with most of Rafah’s population displaced and entire neighbourhoods reduced to rubble.
The Israeli narrative, that Hamas fighters emerged from a tunnel to ambush troops, was accepted uncritically by much of legacy media. Subsequent reports and field evidence suggest a different cause.
What Is Known
The Gaza Strip has become one of the most contaminated places on earth. According to the UN Mine Action Service and Reuters, between 5% and 10% of Israel’s munitions failed to detonate, leaving tens of thousands of unexploded bombs buried across residential areas. Médecins Sans Frontières has warned that “removing these explosives could take years”. In effect, the risk to Palestinians will persist long after the bombing stops and Israel’s weapons will go on killing innocent Palestinian civilians.
Rafah, the last refuge for over a million displaced Palestinians, has been turned into a wasteland of twisted metal and dust. Even Israel’s own outlet Ynet News admitted that an explosion occurred near an Israeli D9 bulldozer in the buffer zone and that an “old explosive device” may have been the trigger. That acknowledgement undermines the official claim that the blast was caused by Hamas.
According to independent monitors and figures compiled by Land Palestine, since the ceasefire was formally announced, Israeli forces have committed more than 80 documented breaches, killing 97 civilians, wounding over 230, demolishing additional homes, and blocking humanitarian access. Israel’s continued closure of crossings has trapped civilians under siege. The Rafah Crossing remains shut, medicines and heavy equipment are still barred, and less than ten per cent of agreed aid has entered Gaza. Al Jazeera reports that food and fuel are blocked for days at a time while Israel decides “security conditions”. Each delay deepens the humanitarian collapse.
Prominent journalist and founder of Zeteo Media, Mehdi Hasan, predicted that the ceasefire was only ever a temporary façade.
“All week the pro-Israel and pro-Trump supporters screamed at us, in unison: why aren’t you celebrating the ceasefire? Because we knew it wouldn’t last. But even I didn’t think it’d be over in less than a week. What a complete and utter humiliation for Trump, thanks to Netanyahu.”
Hasan’s observation captured what many already understood – that Israel’s ceasefire was never intended to hold. It was a diplomatic performance, a brief pause to placate Washington before resuming bombing under the familiar pretexts of ‘security’ and ‘self-defence.’
Did US Officials Know?
Adding to the outrage, journalist Ryan Grim revealed that, according to a source “familiar with the matter”, Washington knew the real cause of the Rafah explosion almost immediately.
If true, it means US officials were aware that the deaths of their own ally’s soldiers resulted from Israel’s own weaponry, not a Hamas attack, yet allowed the false narrative to circulate, giving political cover for renewed bombing while no American agency has publicly confirmed or denied Grim’s report. Washington continues to arm Israel and veto international calls for accountability even as evidence mounts of deliberate misinformation.
Ben-Gvir: “Now We Must Go Back to Fighting”
As global outrage mounts with even many Americans growing increasingly weary of Israel’s relentless atrocities, the country’s far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir made his intentions clear, live on Israeli television: with the hostages’ return, the assault on Gaza will not stop.
“Now that we have received the hostages, we must go back to fighting, we must return to war, we have to blame them for the moment…and open the gates of hell upon Gaza.”
Ben-Gvir has repeatedly advocated the expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza and the re-establishment of Jewish settlements inside the Strip, policies widely recognised as ethnic cleansing. He earlier warned his party would quit the coalition if Netanyahu entertained another ceasefire. Times of Israel and Israel National News both reported his demand for “total victory” and the occupation of Gaza “until every terrorist is eliminated”. However, to Ben-Gvir, every Palestinian is a terrorist, as he notoriously said:
“When we say that Hamas should be destroyed, it also means those who celebrate, those who support, and those who hand out candy – they’re all terrorists, and they should also be destroyed”.
His rhetoric led to sanctions from Western governments, the UK among them, which cited “incitement of violence against Palestinian civilians” in its decision to penalise him. What Israel calls a “war” is, by his own admission, a campaign of destruction to permanently restructure Gaza’s demography under the guise of security.
