Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he has ordered the army to immediately carry out "powerful strikes" in Gaza, a new test for the tenuous US-brokered ceasefire .

The order from Netanyahu on Tuesday (early Wednesday AEDT) follows heightened tensions, as Israel reported Hamas firing on its forces in southern Gaza and after Hamas returned a set of remains that Israel said belonged to a hostage recovered earlier in the war.

Netanyahu called the return a "clear violation" of the ceasefire agreement, which requires Hamas to return all Israeli hostage remains as soon as possible.

In a sign of the fragility of the ceasefire, Israeli troops were shot at in the southern city of Rafah on Tuesday and returned fire, according to an Israeli military official who spoke on c

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