Hamas has handed over more bodies of deceased hostages after Israel accused the group of violating the ceasefire and restricted humanitarian aid into Gaza.
Israel said it would also delay plans to open the crucial Rafah border crossing to Egypt because Hamas failed to turn over the remains of several hostages who had died after being captured in the October 7 attacks.
According to a note seen by Reuters and confirmed by the United Nations, Israel said it would only allow 300 aid trucks into Gaza a day, half the agreed number.
COGAT, the Israeli military arm that oversees aid flows into Gaza, also notified the UN that no fuel or gas would be allowed into the enclave except for specific needs related to humanitarian infrastructure.
The decision poses a major test for the tentative ceasefire and is a major setback to hopes that food and supplies would be quickly ramped up to ease famine in the enclave.
Hours after Israel's announcement, Hamas informed mediators it would transfer four bodies to Israel from 10pm Tuesday local time (6am Wednesday AEDT), an official involved in the operation said.
The Israeli military later said the Red Cross had received four coffins from Hamas and was on the way to hand over the remains to Israeli forces.
Before the latest hostage bodies were handed over to the Red Cross, Hamas had handed over four coffins of dead hostages, leaving at least 23 presumed dead and one unaccounted for, still in the Gaza Strip.
Israel's two-year assault has left much of the enclave in ruins and Hamas has previously said locating the bodies was difficult.
On Tuesday, Hamas said Israel was killing people in Gaza and violating the ceasefire.
Buses carrying Palestinians released from Israeli prisons arrive outside the Nasser hospital in Khan Younis on Monday. Source: NurPhoto, Getty / Majdi Fathi
"If they don't disarm, we will disarm them," Trump told reporters in Washington after returning from his trip to the Middle East
"And it will happen quickly and perhaps violently."
Hamas, which seized Gaza in a brief 2007 civil war, has swiftly reclaimed the streets of Gaza's urban areas following the partial withdrawal of Israeli troops last week.
In a video circulated late on Monday, Hamas fighters dragged seven men with their hands tied behind their backs into a Gaza City square, forced them to their knees and shot them from behind, as dozens of onlookers watched from nearby storefronts.
A Hamas source confirmed that the video was filmed on Monday and that Hamas fighters participated in the executions.
Trump has previously given his blessing to Hamas to reassert some control of Gaza, at least temporarily. Israeli officials have so far refrained from commenting publicly on the re-emergence of the group's fighters.
On Monday, Trump proclaimed the "historic dawn of a new Middle East" to Israel's parliament, as Israel and Hamas were exchanging the last 20 living Israeli hostages in Gaza for nearly 2,000 Palestinian detainees and prisoners.
Hamas accused Israel of ceasefire breach
Gaza residents said Hamas fighters were increasingly visible on Tuesday, deploying along routes needed for aid deliveries. Palestinian security officials said dozens of people had been killed in clashes between Hamas fighters and rivals in recent days.
Meanwhile, Israel, using aerial drones, killed five Palestinians as they went to check on houses in a suburb east of Gaza City, and an Israeli airstrike killed one person and injured another near Khan Younis, Gaza health authorities said.
Hamas accused Israel of violating the ceasefire. The Israeli military said it had fired on people who crossed truce lines and approached its forces after ignoring calls to turn back.
A summit co-hosted by Trump in Egypt on Monday ended with no public announcement of major progress towards establishing an international military force for Gaza, or a new governing body.
Gaza City and surrounding areas are suffering from a famine that has afflicted more than half a million Palestinians, but aid trucks have yet to be permitted to enter Gaza at the full anticipated rate of hundreds per day.
Plans have yet to be implemented to open the crossing to Egypt to let some Gazans out, initially to evacuate the wounded for medical treatment.
Hamas reasserts control
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has maintained that the war cannot end until Hamas surrenders its weapons and cedes control of Gaza, a demand the fighters have rejected.
Hamas sources on Tuesday said the group would tolerate no more violations of order in Gaza and would target collaborators, armed looters and drug dealers.
Israeli tanks and military vehicles deployed along the border region in Sderot on Israel on Tuesday. Source: Anadolu, Getty / Mostafa Alkharouf
It has deployed hundreds of workers to start clearing rubble on routes needed to access damaged or destroyed housing, and to repair broken water pipes. Road clearance and security provision will also be needed for increased aid delivery.
The ceasefire has stopped two years of devastating warfare in Gaza triggered by the October 7 attack in 2023, in which Hamas-led gunmen killed around 1,200 people and took 251 hostages back to Gaza, according to Israeli tallies.
Israel's military has killed at least 67,000 people in Gaza, according to local health authorities, with thousands more feared dead under the rubble. Gaza's civil defence service said 250 bodies had been recovered since the truce began.
— With additional reporting by Associated Press.
