Jerusalem: Israel’s military operation in the Gaza Strip is expanding to seize “large areas,” the defence minister said, while officials at hospitals inside the Palestinian territory said that Israeli strikes overnight and into Wednesday had killed more than 40 people, nearly a dozen of them children.
Israel’s offensive in the Palestinian territory was “expanding to crush and clean the area” of militants and “seizing large areas that will be added to the security zones of the State of Israel,” Defence Minister Israel Katz said in a written statement.
The Israeli government has long maintained a buffer zone just inside Gaza along its security fence and has greatly expanded since the war began in 2023. Israel says the buffer zone is needed for its security, while Palestinians view it as a land grab that further shrinks the narrow coastal territory, home to around 2 million people.
Katz didn’t specify which areas of Gaza would be seized in the expanded operation, which he said includes the “extensive evacuation” of the population from fighting areas. His statement came after Israel ordered the full evacuation of the southern city of Rafah and nearby areas.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said Israel aims to maintain an open-ended but unspecified security control of the Gaza Strip once it achieves its aim of crushing Hamas.
The minister called on Gaza residents to “expel Hamas and return all hostages”. The militant group still holds 59 captives, of whom 24 are believed to still be alive, after most of the rest were released in ceasefire agreements or other deals.
“This is the only way to end the war,” Katz said.
Since the breakdown of the ceasefire last month, when Israel ordered people to move and expanded their areas of operation, the “no-go” zones in Gaza now constitute more than 60% of the strip, said Olga Cherevko, a spokesperson for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
Aid groups are providing assistance as the situation allows, as supplies dwindled because of Israel’s monthlong blockade on Gaza. “No-go” zones include the military zone in the Netzarim corridor — a zone carved out by Israel separating northern from southern Gaza — and the expanded buffer zone and evacuation areas.
The Hostage Families Forum, which represents most captives’ families, said that it was “horrified to wake up this morning to the Defence Minister’s announcement about expanding military operations in Gaza”.
The group said the Israeli government “has an obligation to free all 59 hostages from Hamas captivity — to pursue every possible channel to advance a deal for their release”. They stressed that every passing day puts their loved ones’ lives at greater risk.