Tel Aviv — Testing the limits of fragility cease-fire in its fifth day, Israel’s military said on Thursday that forces had opened fire in the south Gaza Strip on masked, armed suspects who posed a threat to their safety. In a statement, the Israel Defense Forces reported incidents east of the southern Gaza city of Rafah, and in the area of ​​the Kerem Shalom border crossing, through which humanitarian aid trucks have been delivering more food, water and medical supplies since the ceasefire took effect. .

The IDF said it had killed one militant from the Islamic Jihad group and that while Israel remained “determined to fully uphold the terms of the (ceasefire) agreement to return the hostages,” it was also “prepared for any scenario and will continue to take whatever action is necessary actions to thwart any immediate threat to IDF soldiers.”

Hamas rulers in Gaza did not immediately react to the incident.

Hours before the IDF confirmed the operation in southern Gaza, the newly sworn-in US Secretary of State Marco Rubio called Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and told the Israeli leader that “maintaining steadfast United States support for Israel is President Trump’s top priority,” according to call reading.

Rubio made a series of calls to foreign ministers around the world, but Netanyahu was the first head of state he spoke with, according to data provided by the State Department. The two men also discussed freeing the remaining 94 Israeli hostages still held in Gaza, seven of whom are Israeli-Americans, and addressing threats from Iran, though the State Department offered no specifics.

Gaza’s health ministry, run by Hamas, has reported no new deaths since the ceasefire took effect, but the official toll continues to rise as rescue teams and ordinary citizens find more bodies and, in some cases, piles of bones in the rubble of the devastated Palestinian enclave.

The ministry said that as of Thursday, its records showed that more than 47,200 people had been killed during the war that sparked Hamas’s October 7, 2023 terror attack on Israel, in which the militants killed approximately 1,200 people and kidnapped 251 people. The remains of more than 160 people have been found in Gaza since the cease-fire began on Sunday, the ministry said.

Thousands more bodies are believed to still lie beneath the collapsed buildings in the enclave, which was home to around 2.3 million people before the war. The media office of the Hamas-run Gaza administration said on Thursday that around 14,000 people were missing.

Faster recovery efforts, along with aid distribution, have been hampered by the belt’s lack of functioning heavy equipment and its decimated infrastructure, according to rescue workers and aid agencies.

As of Wednesday, the UN said 808 trucks carrying humanitarian aid, including food, fuel and medical supplies, had entered the belt since the ceasefire took effect. But a cease-fire and hostage-free deal negotiated by the US, Qatar and Egypt required 600 trucks to enter the territory every day.

Hamas said it would release four more hostages – Israeli women – on Saturday. The first exchange on Sunday saw three prisoners freed in exchange for about 90 Palestinian prisoners, who were released from an Israeli prison in the occupied West Bank. Israel is expected to release another 200 Palestinian detainees in the next exchange this weekend.

In the meantime, a “big” military offensives launched by the IDF in the West Bank earlier this week continued overnight, focused on and around the sprawling Jenin refugee camp in the north of the Palestinian Territory.

The IDF says it has killed two men in Operation Iron Wall who were linked to the Hamas-allied Islamic Jihad group, claiming the men killed three Israelis in a bus attack two weeks ago in the West Bank.

The Palestinian Ministry of Health in the West Bank, which is not controlled by Hamas like Gaza, said on Wednesday that 10 Palestinians were killed in a new IDF operation.

The “Iron Wall” was a major show of force by the IDF in Jenin, an area of ​​the West Bank that Israel has long considered a stronghold of Iranian-backed militant groups. Since the Gaza ceasefire took effect, the IDF has shifted its focus — and firepower — to the West Bank.

One of President Trump’s many initial moves at the start of his second term this week was to roll back Biden-era sanctions imposed on Israeli settlers seen as a security threat in the West Bank.

Domestically, for Prime Minister Netanyahu, the West Bank offensive may be at least partly aimed at placating some of his support base – including far-right members of their own cabinet – who were enraged by the cease-fire agreement with Hamas.

Israel’s former national security minister, the right-wing nationalist Itamar Ben-Gvir, resigned in protest at the deal, saying it was a concession to terror.

If the country’s finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, another far-right member of the government, were to resign, then Netanyahu’s fragile coalition government would fall apart. The country would then have to call early national elections, which could threaten Netanyahu’s own long grip on political power.

Ramy Innocence

Ramy Inocencio is a CBS News foreign correspondent based in London, covering Europe and the Middle East. He joined the network in 2019 as CBS News’ Asia correspondent, based in Beijing and reporting across the Asia-Pacific region, bringing two decades of experience working and traveling between Asia and the United States.