US President Donald Trump speaks in the Oval Office, on the day he signs executive orders, at the White House in Washington, DC, March 6, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein

The White House confirmed on Monday night that Israel consulted the United States before resuming military operations against the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas in Gaza. 

“The Trump administration and the White House were consulted by the Israelis on their attacks in Gaza tonight,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told Fox News. “As President Trump has made it clear, Hamas, the Houthis, Iran – all those who seek to terrorize not just Israel but also the United States of America – will see a price to pay: all hell will break loose.”

She added that all of “the terrorists in the Middle East” should take US President Donald Trump “very seriously when he says he is not afraid to stand for law-abiding people … and our friend and our ally Israel.”

In addition, White House National Security Council spokesperson Brian Hughes defended Israel’s decision to resume its military campaign in Gaza. 

“Hamas could have released hostages to extend the ceasefire but instead chose refusal and war,” Hughes said in a statement.

On Monday night, Israel resumed airstrikes targeting Hamas in Gaza under the directive of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose office said in a statement that the military action followed “Hamas’s repeated refusal to release our hostages, as well as its rejection of all of the proposals it has received from US presidential envoy Steve Witkoff and from the mediators.”

The Israeli military attacked “targets of the Hamas terrorist organization throughout the Gaza Strip in order to achieve the objectives of the war as they have been determined by the political echelon including the release of all of our hostages, the living and the deceased,” the statement continued. “Israel will, from now on, act against Hamas with increasing military strength.”

Around 400 Palestinians were killed from the Israeli airstrikes, according to data provided by the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between terrorist combatants and civilians. Researchers have shown that casualty figures published by Gaza’s Hamas-run health authorities have been inflated to defame Israel.

Hamas lambasted Israel for resuming airstrikes in Gaza, vowing to hold Netanyahu and the Jewish state “fully responsible for the repercussions of the treacherous aggression on Gaza, and for the defenseless civilians and our besieged Palestinian people, who are subjected to a brutal war and a systematic policy of starvation.”

“Netanyahu and his extremist government have decided to overturn the ceasefire agreement, exposing the prisoners in Gaza to an unknown fate,” the terrorist group continued.

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz repudiated the terrorist group over its refusal to release the remaining hostages and vowed to continue the war effort until the Jewish state successfully defeats Hamas. 

“If Hamas does not release all the kidnapped, the gates of hell will open in Gaza and Hamas’s murderers and rapists will meet the IDF [Israel Defense Forces] with forces they have never known before,” Katz said in a statement. “We will not stop fighting until all the kidnapped return home and all the war’s goals are achieved.”

Hamas-led Palestinian terrorists started the war in Gaza on Oct. 7, 2023, when they invaded, southern Israel, murdered 1,200 people, and kidnapped 251 hostages. Israel responded with a military campaign aimed at freeing the captives and dismantling Hamas’s military and governing capabilities in neighboring Gaza.

Fighting stopped when a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas went into effect on Jan. 19.

Israel subsequently presented Hamas with a proposal for an extension of the Gaza ceasefire and hostage-release deal. The proposal would have mandated that Hamas release half of the remaining Israeli hostages who were kidnapped into Gaza at the beginning of the extension. The rest of the hostages would be released at the end, if Hamas and Israel can agree on a permanent ceasefire deal. Israel would retain the right to restart the war in Gaza if negotiations are unsuccessful by the 42-day mark.

According to Jerusalem, the ceasefire extension proposal was the brainchild of Trump’s Middle East envoy, Witkoff.

However, Hamas refused to extend the first phase of the ceasefire deal, leading Israel to announce that it would block humanitarian aid transfers into Gaza to pressure the terrorist group into accepting the ceasefire extension. 

Hamas is believed to still have 24 living hostages taken in the Oct. 7 attack, including Israeli-American Edan Alexander. It is also holding the bodies of 34 others who were either killed in the initial attack or in captivity, as well as the remains of a soldier killed in the 2014 Israel-Hamas war.