BEIRUT (Dispatches) -- Israeli fighter pilots returning from missions during the 12-day war with Iran were routinely authorized to unload their leftover munitions on the Gaza Strip, according to a report by Maariv on Wednesday.
The move, initially a pilot-led initiative to “assist” Israeli ground forces in Khan Yunis and northern Gaza, was quickly expanded by air force commander Tomer Bar into a daily operational policy across all squadrons.
The report outlines how, during the aggression, pilots assigned to intercept missiles and drones launched from Iran were equipped not only with air-to-air missiles but also with air-to-surface munitions.
After completing their Iran-related missions, pilots contacted Gaza operation control rooms and offered to drop remaining bombs on designated targets in the enclave.
Air force officials embraced the initiative. Within hours, the ad hoc proposal became standard practice, with squadrons instructed to coordinate with ground units before landing and to strike Gaza on their return.
Military officials described the program as a “force multiplier” that allowed the air force to expand bombing raids in Gaza without additional resources.
“Instead of bouncing planes off the ground for an attack policy, planes that were already in the air carried out the missions,” an Israeli air force source told Maariv.
The result was what the report describes as “waves of powerful airstrikes” on the strip, far removed from the Iranian front. According to the Israeli military, dozens of fighter jets participated daily, each releasing surplus munitions over the besieged enclave before landing.
While presented as a resource-efficient strategy, the practice effectively turned Gaza into a secondary front in a war that had no operational connection to the territory.
The attacks were directed based on instructions from Israeli ground forces already operating in Khan Yunis and northern Gaza,
amplifying the daily bombardment of areas already under siege.
At least 45 more Palestinians were killed and scores injured as the Israeli military escalated its attacks on civilians across the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, medics said.
A medical source told Anadolu that the Israeli military shelled civilians seeking to obtain aid on Salah al-Din Street, near the Netzarim Corridor in central Gaza, killing 10 Palestinians and injuring over 50.
Five others waiting for the aid in western Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip were killed by Israeli army fire, the source said.
Two Palestinians were killed and others injured in an Israeli strike that targeted a home in the Al-Mawasi area of Khan Yunis, southern Gaza Strip.
Israeli strikes also hit three tents sheltering displaced Palestinians, killing 12 people.
Three others were killed after Israel shelled a group of civilians in central Khan Yunis. The bodies of two Palestinians were also retrieved from the rubble in eastern areas of the city.
In the central city of Deir al-Balah, the Israeli military targeted a group of civilians, resulting in the death of five people.
Five more Palestinians lost their lives, and others were injured in Israeli strikes in Gaza City, medics said.
Meanwhile, eight people were injured when Israeli jets struck a residential building in the Al-Tuffah neighborhood of Gaza City.
Gaza’s Health Ministry also said that the director of the Indonesian Hospital in northern Gaza, Marwan Sultan, was killed, along with some of his family members, after Israeli warplanes hit his house in Gaza City.
The hospital is the Palestinian enclave’s largest medical facility north of Gaza City and has been a critical lifeline since the start of the Israel-Hamas war.
The hospital was surrounded by Israeli troops last month, and evacuated alongside the other two primary hospitals in northern Gaza.
The bodies of the doctor, his wife, daughter and son-in-law, arrived at Shifa Hospital torn into pieces, according to Issam Nabhan, head of the nursing department at the Indonesian Hospital.
“Gaza lost a great man and doctor,” Nabhan said. “He never left the hospital one moment since the war began and urged us to stay and provide humanitarian assistance. We don’t know what he did to deserve getting killed.”
Despite international calls for a ceasefire, the Israeli military has pursued a genocidal war on the Gaza Strip, killing more than 57,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children, since October 2023.
U.S. President Donald Trump said Tuesday that Israel has agreed to “the necessary conditions” to finalize a 60-day ceasefire in the enclave, urging the Palestinian resistance group Hamas to accept the proposal.
Hamas insisted on its longstanding position that any deal bring an end to the war on Gaza.
Trump said the 60-day period would be used to work toward ending the war — something Israel says it won’t accept until Hamas is defeated. He said that a deal might come together as soon as next week.
But Israel’s defiance raised questions about whether the latest offer could materialize into an actual pause in fighting.
Hamas official Taher al-Nunu said that the group was “ready and serious regarding reaching an agreement.” He said Hamas was “ready to accept any initiative that clearly leads to the complete end to the war.”
A Hamas delegation was expected to meet with Egyptian and Qatari mediators in Cairo on Wednesday to discuss the proposal, according to an Egyptian official.
Throughout the nearly 21-month-long war, ceasefire talks between Israel and Hamas have repeatedly faltered over whether the war should end as part of any deal.
Hamas said in a brief statement Wednesday that it had received a proposal from the mediators and is holding talks with them to “bridge gaps” to return to the negotiating table to try to reach a ceasefire agreement.
Hamas has said that it’s willing to free the remaining 50 captives, less than half of whom are said to be alive, in exchange for a complete Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and an end to the war.
Gaza’s Health Ministry said the death toll passed the 57,000 mark Tuesday into Wednesday, after hospitals received 142 bodies overnight.
The Israeli war has left the coastal Palestinian territory in ruins, with much of the urban landscape flattened in the fighting. More than 90% of Gaza’s 2.3 million population has been displaced, often multiple times. And the war has sparked a humanitarian crisis in Gaza, pushing hundreds of thousands of people toward hunger.
Last November, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former war minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.
Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its war on the enclave.