Satellite images show northern Gaza village leveled

Israel Defense Forces leveled a village in northern Gaza in the days following the collapse of the fragile ceasefire that went into effect earlier this year.

The village, Umm al-Nasser, is one example of the pace and intensity at which the IDF has returned to fighting in Gaza since Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu resumed military operations between Israel and Hamas on March 18.

Umm al-Nasser was flattened by the IDF between March 29 and March 31, according to satellite images analyzed by ABC News. The destroyed village is located inside the IDF's security zone implemented before the Jan. 19 United States-brokered ceasefire.

The IDF began expanding the already established security zone in northern Gaza on April 4, according to statements from the IDF.

ABC News reviewed two high-resolution satellite images from Planet Labs, one taken on March 29 and another on March 31. In the earlier image, the village of Umm al-Nasser appears mostly intact, but in the later image, all visible buildings appear to have been leveled.

The images show a once-standing village reduced to rubble.

Residents of Gaza were finally allowed to return to parts of northern Gaza when the ceasefire went into effect Jan. 19. Many returned home to piles of rubble where their homes once stood, but some were lucky enough to return home and find remnants of their old life intact. Residents of Umm al-Nasser would not have been allowed back to their village under phase one of the ceasefire deal, due to its location in the security zone.

In a notice on Feb. 10, during the ceasefire agreement, the IDF told residents that they were allowed to return to parts of northern Gaza, which were previously inaccessible to them, using one of the main roads located in the Gaza Strip, Salah al-Din. The notice came following the withdrawal of IDF troops from the Netzarim corridor – which cut Gaza in half – under the terms of the ceasefire, allowing Gazans to return north.

The conditions in northern Gaza quickly changed as the IDF resumed fighting on March 18. Just weeks later, on April 4, the IDF announced that “in order to expand the security zone,” ground troops had begun to operate in the Shejaiya area, located in the east of Gaza City, which had been protected during the ceasefire agreement from Jan. 19 to March 18.

On March 21, a week prior to the apparent destruction of Umm al-Nasser, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz issued a press release that laid out plans to expand the security zone in Gaza and seize more territories there if Hamas "continues to refuse to release the hostages.”

"I have instructed the IDF to seize additional areas in Gaza, while evacuating the population, and to expand the security zones around Gaza in order to protect Israeli communities and IDF soldiers,” Katz said in the release.

Umm al-Nasser was in an area of northern Gaza marked as a "buffer zone" by the IDF during the ceasefire. Controlled by IDF troops, the buffer zone was intended to be a neutral area acting as a barrier between Israel and Gaza. The renewal of IDF strikes in northern Gaza did not spare Umm al-Nasser, despite it being located in the buffer zone.

Thirteen days after that ceasefire ended, the village was destroyed.

The April 4 announcement of the security zone expansion and the destruction of Umm al-Nasser demonstrates the IDF's continued military operations in Gaza and is an example of how quickly the conditions in Gaza have deteriorated since the ceasefire.

In an April 4 press release, the IDF claimed that their activity in northern Gaza was aimed at “expanding the defensive security zone and destroying the terrorist infrastructure of the Hamas terrorist organization.” It added that in an aircraft strike, “a terrorist operative who served as deputy commander of a company in Hamas’ elite force” was killed and that "IDF troops are allowing the evacuation of civilians from the combat zone via organized routes for their safety." Umm al-Nasser was not mentioned in the statement.

In the same April 4 statement, the IDF released video of an aircraft strike, the first six seconds of which ABC News geolocated to Umm al-Nasser, showing the destruction of the village.

In response to ABC News' inquiries about the incident, the IDF said the activity was in accordance with international law and was done to prevent "offensive terrorist activities,.

"The IDF is destroying terrorist infrastructure, strengthening defense components in communities, maintaining a broad military presence in the security zone adjacent to Israel, and working to remove threats in the area,” the IDF statement also said.

“The Israeli occupation destroyed everything completely, which significantly impacted the residents of Umm al-Nasser,” a public relations manager at the Municipality of Umm al-Nasser told ABC News, adding that "more than 50 were killed, and around 100 were injured."

The village was subject to “bombardment and destruction since the beginning of the war,” which has displaced may of the residents, the manager further said.

“The village residents are scattered in several places in western Gaza City, while others have moved to the southern Gaza Strip,” the manager told ABC News.

The strike in late March was not the first time Umm al-Nasser had been targeted by the IDF. Satellite images reviewed by ABC News show the north of the same village being cleared by the IDF in October 2024, where crops and buildings are seen destroyed. In January 2025, a video posted on social media showed a building being demolished in the southern part of the village.

The destruction of Umm al-Nasser is one example of the IDF’s expanded operations in Gaza since the collapse of the ceasefire on March 18. While many in Gaza had begun to become accustomed to some level of normalcy during the six-week ceasefire from Jan. 19 to March 18, that reality has quickly been replaced by the resumption of nightly bombings and the lack of humanitarian aid entering the strip for more than five weeks.

The Israeli government said they resumed operations in Gaza because Hamas was unwilling to release more hostages in an extension of the ceasefire, while Hamas has accused Israel of changing the ceasefire agreement. The Israeli government also said they resumed operations to eliminate Hamas, which has been a goal since the beginning of the war, and to secure the return of the rest of the remaining hostages still being held in Gaza.

Hamas-led militants took 251 people hostage on Oct. 7, 2023, and killed around 1,200 mostly civilians in southern Israel, according to Israeli officials. Fifty-eight hostages remain in Gaza, 24 of them presumed to be alive, including one American.

Since March 18, the IDF has again increased its presence in Gaza, targeting areas across the strip and issuing evacuation orders. Over 1,300 people have been killed and over 3,000 injured since March 18, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Ministry of Health, bringing the total number of deaths in Gaza since Oct. 7, 2023, to 50,609, with 115,063 injured.

ABC News' Victoria Beaule, Christopher Looft, Gabrielle Vinick, Kirit Radia and Ellie Kaufman contributed to this report.