GB News heads into Gaza as Hamas continues ceasefire campaign of terror despite commitment to disarm

Over four months after the IDF dropped its campaign of major operations against the group, the force is still being harassed by regular low-level attacks.

At an outpost inside the yellow line in Gaza, which divides the territory between Hamas-controlled areas and Israel-controlled sections, the People's Channel saw firsthand evidence of violations of the ceasefire agreement by Hamas terrorists.

After arriving into the war-torn strip in an armoured convoy, GB News is quickly told that there is an ongoing sniper threat and that we will be watched by Hamas while inside.

The coastal enclave is a desolate sight. Entire neighbourhoods have been flattened in Israel’s war with Hamas.

There is a humanitarian crisis in the strip, with the IDF keen to show a pack of international journalists the aid trucks it is sending into the area.

Some former Hamas members are now starting to speak about their regret over the October 7 massacre, which brought such destruction to the strip.

The UN says that 60 million tonnes of rubble have been left here by the bombardments.

Somewhere amid the rubble, enough destruction to fill 3,000 container ships, is the body of the last remaining Israeli hostage.

Donald Trump said this week that the US knows where the body of the slain police officer Ran Gvilli is.

Securing his recovery is a central part of Trump’s peace plan, which is reaching its second phase.

It’s during this period where Hamas, who started the war with their brutal invasion of Israel, is required to disarm.

But few Israelis expect that the terrorist group will follow through on the commitment.

And Hamas itself is adamant that it must keep weapons, despite agreeing to a plan saying they should lose them.

In December, Hamas' Gaza chief Khalil Al-Hayya said that the terrorists had a "legitimate right" to keep their weapons and that the ongoing ceasefire agreement must respect this right.

Al-Hayya, who was lucky to survive an assassination attempt by Israel in Qatar in September, also said: "Resistance and its weapons are a legitimate right guaranteed by international law and are linked to the establishment of a Palestinian state.”

His words have been heard by those continuing to brandish those weapons in Gaza.

Showing secret intelligence to journalists, IDF officers displayed what they said was mapping of newly discovered terror tunnel networks in the outpost area that journalists visited.

A spokesperson told GB News that a few days ago, six terrorists appeared out of a tunnel and carried out an attack against Israeli troops.

One of the main missions for soldiers in this area is to search for those tunnels and to dismantle them. They use a “concrete machine” to pour cement into these tunnels to destroy them.

The other main mission for IDF soldiers in Gaza is to make sure Hamas does not violate the agreement. The yellow line area we visited is less than a mile from Israeli land.

The IDF said they take many steps to make sure that Palestinians who “are not Hamas” do not approach or cross the yellow line.

In Rafah earlier this week, they dropped leaflets on people who approached the line, who read them and then turned around. But not everyone is mistakenly approaching the area.

GB News was shown footage of what the IDF said was a Hamas terrorist approaching the outpost, producing a rifle and firing at soldiers, before being eliminated.

On that morning, another man was killed near the outpost.

The IDF said that they had detected a pattern where he appeared to be preparing the ground to plant IEDs and then had returned the next day to plant the bombs. The IDF did not immediately provide footage of this attack.

Speaking to GB News, IDF International Spokesperson Lt Col Nadav Shoshani said that Hamas “is a terror organisation with an extreme Jihadi world perception, and someone needs to make them disarm.”

To the crackle of gunfire in the background, he added: “We hope that international forces and different forces can force them to disarm.

"But we're also here protecting Israel and ready for any scenario, to do whatever needs to be done.”

Since that precarious ceasefire in October, at least 466 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, according to Hamas. Three IDF soldiers have been killed in the same period by Hamas or Palestinian factions.

Large-scale fighting between Israel and the terror group has dwindled, but there are still daily clashes.

The sound of gunfire is constant during our hour-long embed inside the Gaza Strip.

Occasionally we heard the unmistakable thud of artillery fire a few kilometres north of our position, where fiercer fighting has erupted.

The constant buzz of a drone circling overhead and regular tank movements completed the orchestra of violence.

Israel does not permit journalists to independently access Gaza. Three photojournalists were killed in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza on Wednesday.

The IDF said that the journalists had been piloting a drone “affiliated with the Hamas terror group,” which posed a threat to troops nearby.

But the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate said the journalists killed “were carrying out a humanitarian, journalistic mission to film and document the suffering of civilians in displacement camps.” The strike is now under investigation.

The IDF has said that there have been failed rocket launch attempts from Gaza and Hamas gunfire and anti-tank rocket attacks on Israeli troops, which have sparked retaliatory airstrikes and military operations.

Amid this ongoing violence, there is little hope that Hamas will give up their weapons, a sense that has been heightened by fresh concerns that Turkey and Qatar will sit on Trump’s board of peace committee.

The two countries are hostile to Israel and have provided Hamas with a range of support over many years, including financial and logistical backing.

The next phase of the plan requires an international stabilisation force to come in as Hamas’s weapons are removed and Israeli troops continue their withdrawal.