Israel has carried out fresh air strikes on Gaza after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered retaliation for one of the heaviest barrages of rocket-fire by Hamas in months.

The Israeli military said about half of the 10 rockets which were fired from Gaza late on Sunday landed inside Israel, while the remainder were shot down. One person was wounded by falling debris, Israeli medics said.

Netanyahu issued the instruction for a “strong response” while on his way to Washington, where he is due to hold talks with US President Donald Trump.

The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza said on Monday morning that at least 56 Palestinians had killed there by Israel over the previous 24 hours.

A Palestinian journalist was killed and nine others wounded when an air strike hit a tent used by local media in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, the Hamas Government Media Office and the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate said.

Reuters news agency said footage showed people trying to put out a blaze in the tent which it said was inside the compound of Nasser hospital.

The dead journalist was identified by the Journalists Syndicate as Helmi al-Faqaawi of Palestine Today TV.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has not commented on the incident.

Nasser, which is the largest hospital still functioning in Gaza, has been struck multiple times by the IDF since the start of the war in October 2023.

Israel has repeatedly accused Hamas of using hospitals as covert bases and for storing weapons, which the group denies.

Earlier, the IDF said it had hit the launcher which fired the rockets at Israel, after ordering residents in several districts of Deir al-Balah in central Gaza to evacuate.

Issuing the order, IDF Arabic spokesman Lt Col Avichay Adraee warned that Israel would “launch a severe strike on any area from which rockets are fired”.

Hamas said it fired the rockets in response to Israeli “massacres of civilians in Gaza”, Reuters news agency reported.

Footage from the Israeli city of Ashkelon showed flashes in the sky as sirens wailed and an explosion at the bottom of a block of flats during the rocket attack on Sunday night.

The rate and scale of Hamas’s rocket attacks sharply dropped after the first few months of the war, as Israel intensively targeted its arsenals and launchers. But the group still intermittently fires at Israel, in a sign that it still possesses capabilities.

Israeli air strikes continued overnight following the attack on the rocket launchers, with the official Palestinian news agency Wafa reporting that sites in north, central and south Gaza were hit.

Efforts to try to restore a ceasefire are continuing, with French President Emmanuel Macron holding talks in Cairo on Monday with Egyptian President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi and Jordan’s King Abdullah II.

Benjamin Netanyahu said the Gaza war and Israel’s efforts to secure the release of the 59 hostages still being held by Hamas would be on the agenda during his talks with Donald Trump at the White House on Monday.

Israel resumed its military campaign in Gaza last month, blaming Hamas for rejecting a US proposal to extend a ceasefire which had begun in January. Hamas, in turn, accused Israel of abandoning the original deal which both sides had agreed to.

The war was triggered by Hamas’s unprecedented attack on Israel on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others taken back to Gaza as hostages.

More than 50,750 Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli offensive since then, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

Kfir and Ariel Bibas were last seen on 7 October with their mother Shiri’s hands around them, holding onto her boys surrounded by gunmen and violence, trying to protect them. She couldn’t.

According to the Israeli army, Kfir and Ariel’s last moments were at the “bare hands” of their captors.

How do you eulogise children who have barely lived their lives?

Kfir Bibas, a hostage at just nine months old, did not live to take his first steps or celebrate his first birthday.

Ariel Bibas had only experienced four years of a life that should have been much longer.

A statement from Kibbutz Nir Oz, where the boys were taken hostage from, described Kfir as “a calm and smiley baby, with ginger hair and a laugh that would make anyone’s heart melt. Wherever he went he lit it up with his smile and joy.”

Ariel, they said, was “a playful boy with ginger hair, curious eyes and a big smile. He loved superheroes, tractors and cars, and ran non-stop, climbing and exploring the world.”

The two brothers became the greatest symbol of the hostage nightmare Israelis are enduring. Bringing home the Bibas family was a country’s fervent hope.

Throughout the last 16 months they have been remembered, prayed for, kept in the hearts of people, not just in Israel but by Jews and others across the world.

Images were shared of the boys in their Batman costumes with Ariel’s cape flying in the wind; of older brother Ariel hugging his baby brother Kfir when he was born; of Kfir giggling and gurgling as his father Yarden played with him.

And then the image seared into the minds since Hamas’s attack on 7 October: the boys clutching onto their mother Shiri Bibas, her face tormented in fear, as they were surrounded by gunmen and taken to Gaza.

No one in Israel wanted this ending; where Kfir and Ariel returned, not to their innocent childhood, but with their tender years already over. And where their mother who protected them until the last moment has not even returned with them.

In Israel, there is communal pain and grief.

In a video statement, the Israeli Prime Minister said Ariel and Kfir Bibas and 84-year-old Oded Lifschitz, whose body was also returned on Thursday, were “brutally murdered by Hamas savages.”

Holding up a picture of the boys, Benjamin Netanyahu said: “Today is a tragic day. It’s a day of boundless sorrow, of indescribable pain.

“Their bodies return home to a nation in mourning. A nation that will never forget and never forgive the evil that cut down these beautiful souls…The Bibas children in particular became the symbol of who we are, and who we’re fighting against.”

Netanyahu said: “Who kidnaps a little boy and a baby and murders them? Monsters. That’s who.”

Israel’s President Isaac Herzog said in a statement: “Agony. Pain. Our hearts — the hearts of an entire nation — lie in tatters.” He asked for forgiveness on behalf of the country for not protecting them and bringing them home.

Shiri, Ariel and Kfir Bibas were aged 32, four and nine months when they were kidnapped during the 7 October attacks.

About 1,200 people – mostly civilians – were killed in the attacks and 251 others taken back to Gaza as hostages. Israel launched a massive military campaign against Hamas in response, which has killed at least 48,297 Palestinians – mainly civilians – according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

This week, in Israel and abroad, people across social media posted images of broken orange hearts to represent the boys with the striking ginger hair.

On Thursday, as the vehicles with the bodies of the Bibas children and Oded Lifschitz crossed into Israel, people lining the streets with Israeli flags shouted out “sorry”.

In October 2023 just weeks after they were kidnapped, the aunt of the Bibas brothers spoke to the BBC.

Ofri Bibas Levy described how Kfir had just started crawling and eating solid food.

“They are civilians and are not supposed to be there. The longer they are there the harder it’s going to be to recover them and the less chance they’re going to come out alive,” she said.

On Friday she wrote on Facebook: “I’m sorry Luli [Ariel], I’m sorry Firfir [Kfir].

“You did not deserve any of this. We will miss you forever. We are not giving up on your mum Shiri.”

In a video statement she added: “Shiri, Ariel, and Kfir were taken alive by a murderous terrorist organization, and it was Israel’s responsibility and obligation to bring them back alive.

“There is no forgiveness for abandoning them on October 7 and no forgiveness for abandoning them in captivity. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, we did not receive an apology from you in this painful moment. For Ariel and Kfir’s sake, and for Yarden’s sake, we are not seeking revenge right now. We are asking for Shiri.”

Yarden Bibas, who was only recently released as a hostage, must now bury his two young boys, with his wife Shiri still not returned by Hamas.

In Israel they are quoting words that painfully resonate: “The smallest coffins are the heaviest.”