A brief spurt of violence severely rattled the fragile ceasefire in Gaza Wednesday, as Hamas ceasefire violations provoked yet another round of deadly Israeli airstrikes across Gaza.

The Israeli military said its forces struck Hamas targets across Gaza after members of the Palestinian militant group fired on its troops in violation of the nearly six-week-old ceasefire. No Israeli forces were injured. According to the IDF, the gunfire occurred on the eastern side of the Yellow Line dividing Gaza into zones controlled by Israel and Hamas, respectively.

In a separate incident Wednesday, the IDF said it killed a terror operative crossing the Yellow Line and approaching Israeli reservists.

Israel responded to the violations with four airstrikes. The Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry claims the airstrikes resulted in at least 25 Palestinian deaths. Israeli officials are assessing whether the airstrikes achieved their objectives of eliminating the commanders of Hamas’s Zeitoun Battalion and of its naval forces.

Israeli Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani, who is stationed near the Yellow Line, told The Times of Israel that Hamas has committed hundreds of violations during the six-week-long ceasefire.

The latest ceasefire violations came two days after the United Nations Security Council approved President Donald Trump’s 20-point peace plan for Gaza and authorized the creation of an International Stabilization Force (ISF), which would begin “the process of demilitarizing the Gaza Strip.”

Both Trump’s peace plan and the ISF’s mission contemplate a scenario in which Hamas is disarmed and removed from power. However, Hamas has refused to lay down its arms and continues to provoke border skirmishes with Israel.

In fact, Hamas condemned the Israeli strikes as a dangerous escalation and urged the United States to “honor its stated commitments and exert immediate pressure on Israel to enforce the ceasefire and halt its attacks.”

But a U.S. official, who spoke anonymously, said Hamas was aiming to break the ceasefire and not fulfill its commitment to demilitarize. “These desperate tactics will fail,” the official said.

“Hamas is not disarming; they are actually rearming,” insisted Shoshani. “It’s a big problem, and it’s something that we will not accept.” Israel’s national public broadcaster reported Sunday that Hamas was stockpiling weapons abroad to begin smuggling them into Gaza at a future date.

On Thursday, Israel Defense Forces found further evidence of terrorist activity east of the Yellow Line. A routine sweep located and dismantled an eight-tube rocket launcher in Israeli-controlled territory, along with Kalashnikov rifles, grenades, explosives, magazines, and military uniforms. Israel says it continues to locate terrorist material in areas it has already cleared.

The picture these facts create is one in which Hamas’s ceasefire violations are more or less constant. When those violations rise to the level of firing on Israeli troops, then Israel responds with airstrikes and then resumes the ceasefire.

However, Hamas’s behavior does not instill confidence that it intends to honor the ceasefire indefinitely. It certainly does not intend to honor the terms of the 20-point peace plan, to which Qatar and the terror group’s other sponsor nations agreed in September.

Hamas’s sole mission is to fight Israel to the death, and it will continue to do so until it is forcibly disarmed, removed from power, or eliminated, whichever comes first.

Some reporting sourced from a Reuters article by Nidal al-Mughrabi.