Israeli forces launched a large-scale strike in Gaza early Tuesday, officials said, in what appeared to be the first major attack on the territory since its cease-fire with Hamas began roughly two months ago.

The Israeli Defense Forces said on Telegram just before 2:30 a.m. that it and the Israeli Security Agency were “conducting extensive strikes on terror targets belonging to the Hamas terrorist organization in the Gaza Strip,” adding that more details would be released later.

Since the cease-fire between Israel and Hamas took effect in mid-January, the Israeli military has conducted a string of smaller strikes on Gaza, which Hamas claims have killed more than 150 people, at least some of them civilians. It has accused Israel of repeatedly violating the truce agreement by continuing military operations.

Israel and Hamas are supposed to be negotiating the next steps in the cease-fire agreement, which would involve a permanent end to the war that began with the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. But mediators including the United States, Qatar and Egypt have made little headway, given the entrenched disagreements between the two sides.

This is a developing story.

For 95 days, Máximo Napa Castro, 61, was alone and lost at sea, praying to God and clinging to the hope that he would one day see his mother again.

Without food or water, he ate cockroaches, birds and finally a turtle, whose blood he drank to slake his thirst.

He talked to God, getting angry at points. “I said to him, ‘What am I going to find here?’” he said. “Who’s going to save me?”

Then he asked for forgiveness.

“Someone is coming or a helicopter is coming,” he recalled thinking. “And then the next day, he sent me a helicopter.”

It was March 12, and Mr. Napa Castro, a Peruvian fisherman, had been spotted by the crew of an Ecuadorean tuna boat hundreds of miles off the Peruvian coast, the Peruvian news source RPP News reported.

He had been at sea since Dec. 7, when he left the Peruvian port of Marcona, Peruvian news outlets reported.

Mr. Napa Castro had set out on a voyage to catch roe, or fish eggs, packing enough food for a month, according to Andina, a Peruvian state news outlet.

But on Dec. 20, after less than two weeks at sea, the engine on his boat broke down, RPP News reported. He rationed his food supplies, including rice and crackers that he had on board, and collected rain to drink, his family told Peruvian news media.

But there were days when Mr. Napa Castro did not eat at all and there was no rain to collect. Still, he believed he would survive. “I said to myself, ‘I won’t die, because I have my children and mother,’” he said.

Catching the turtle was a major break, he said, but he did not like having to kill it. “It’s either you or me,” he recalled thinking.

Mr. Napa Castro’s daughter, Ines Napa Torres, told RPP News that local fishermen had searched for her father, to no avail. She said the family had also urged the authorities to conduct an aerial search. His boat didn’t have a radio beacon, which would have made it easier to locate, RPP News reported.

Still, Ms. Napa Torres told RPP News, “We, as a family, never lost faith — the hope — that we would find my father.”

After he was spotted by the tuna boat, Mr. Napa Castro was taken by helicopter to a Peruvian Coast Guard vessel, where he was given medical attention, according to the Peruvian Navy, which posted a photo on Instagram of a medic treating him.

Ms. Napa Torres said her father was sunburned and dehydrated. She called it a “miracle” that he had survived.

On Friday, Mr. Napa Castro walked off a dock in Peru and was embraced by his brother, who was there to greet him, video showed. Both men sobbed.

“I didn’t want to die, for my mother,” Mr. Napa Castro told reporters through tears. “I have a 2-month-old granddaughter. I clung to her. Every day, I thought about my mother.”

Later, Mr. Napa Castro told reporters that he was looking forward to a home-cooked meal of arroz con pollo, a pork stew called carapulcra and a noodle dish called sopa seca.

He was also welcomed home with a celebration, where cheering friends, relatives and neighbors presented him with a cake adorned with decorative birds, cockroaches and a turtle.

His mother, Elena Castro, who sat by his side at the celebration, said she had prayed that she would see her son again.

“I told God: Whether he’s alive or dead, bring him here, even if it’s just to see him,” she told Andina. “But my daughters never lost faith. They kept telling me, ‘Mom, he’ll come back; he’ll come back.’”

Shortly after the Trump administration deported hundreds of Venezuelans to El Salvador this weekend, the Salvadoran president, Nayib Bukele, posted a three-minute video on social media. It featured shackled men being marched off a plane over a dramatic electronic soundtrack and into prison, where they were shaved bald.

Mr. Bukele also taunted the U.S. judge who unsuccessfully ordered the flights turned around, posting on X, “Oopsie … Too late,” with a laughing emoji. Secretary of State Marco Rubio shared the video, as did Elon Musk. Mr. Trump thanked Mr. Bukele online, saying, “We will not forget!”

El Salvador’s role in the Trump administration’s deportation strategy signals a new level of power and global visibility for Mr. Bukele, who became president at 37 in 2019 and was re-elected by a landslide last year.

He has become Latin America’s most popular leader for his takedown of gangs, even as he has suspended key civil liberties and has been accused by U.S. prosecutors of secretly negotiating with the same gangs. He is now positioning himself as a crucial regional ally to Mr. Trump.

The world’s ‘coolest dictator’

Mr. Bukele uses social media to project a slick and casual look — often wearing a backward baseball cap and aviator shades — and to respond to criticism of his iron-fisted approach to crime and violence.

In spring 2022, after a surge in gang violence rocked El Salvador, the government imposed a state of emergency that has been in place ever since. Mr. Bukele empowered police and the military forces to carry out mass arrests, which human rights groups say have ensnared without due process people who have no gang ties.

Many of the 85,000 Salvadorans apprehended have disappeared into the prison system, held for years without trial and without their families knowing if they are alive.

Mr. Bukele has also been accused of undermining democratic institutions. He has embraced the criticism, referring to himself as the world’s “coolest dictator.”

Adding to his tough-on-crime persona are the highly produced videos and photos that his government regularly releases. They feature shirtless men in handcuffs or prisoners working in factory-like conditions. And they often include footage from the forbidding Terrorism Confinement Center, known as CECOT, a hulking site that can house up to 40,000 inmates.

An alliance with Trump

Mr. Bukele’s embrace of emergency security powers and his promotion of the cryptocurrency Bitcoin have earned him praise in Mr. Trump’s inner circle.

He was given a standing ovation at the conservative CPAC event last year and recently met with Mr. Musk at a Tesla plant in Texas.

Last month, Mr. Bukele took Mr. Rubio on a sun-drenched tour of the presidential residence outside San Salvador. Afterward, Mr. Rubio announced that Mr. Bukele had offered to take in deportees of any nationality, including Americans, and to house them in CECOT — for a fee.

Included in that group, Mr. Rubio said, would be “any illegal alien in the United States who is a criminal of any nationality, whether from MS-13 or the Tren de Aragua,” the Salvadoran and Venezuelan gangs.

A White House spokeswoman said on Monday that El Salvador would receive $6 million for taking in the Venezuelan deportees, who the U.S. government said were members of Tren de Aragua, without offering evidence or the detainees’ names.

The deportation created panic among Venezuelan families, who feared their relatives were among those handed over to the Salvadoran authorities.

Bringing MS-13 members back

The day after Mr. Rubio’s announcement, the Salvadoran ambassador to Washington, Milena Mayorga, said Mr. Bukele had asked to include MS-13 leaders among those deported to El Salvador, “as a matter of honor.”

“The president was blunt and told Rubio: I want you to send me the gang leaders who are in the United States,” Ms. Mayorga said.

The deportees also included two Salvadoran men described by Mr. Rubio as “dangerous top MS-13 leaders.”

Mr. Bukele’s relationship to MS-13 — which began in El Salvador but has spread through Latin America and the United States — is complicated.

Under the Biden administration, the Department of Justice accused Mr. Bukele and his administration of secretly negotiating a pact with certain gang leaders: In exchange for helping keep down homicide numbers, Salvadoran officials offered them privileges behind bars, the department said.

Top Salvadoran officials, the Justice Department said, also helped an MS-13 boss escape the country even though the United States had requested his extradition.

In 2021, the Treasury Department imposed sanctioned against members of the administration for doling out favors to gang leaders. Mr. Bukele and members of his administration were named in U.S. indictments of MS-13 leaders.

Mr. Bukele has denied making a deal with gang leaders.

Though his popularity has soared, some analysts say the Salvadoran leader may be fearful of losing his grip on power if his alleged collaboration with gang leaders were to fully come to light.

Mr. Bukele said the deportees would be held for at least a year and made to perform labor and attend workshops under a program called “Zero Idleness.”

In announcing the arrival of this weekend’s flights, he called them “the first.”

Gabriel Labrador contributed reporting from San Salvador.