Israel’s defence minister has said the country intends to “seize large areas” of the Gaza Strip amid a major expansion of aerial and ground operations in the besieged Palestinian territory.
Israel Katz said in a statement on Wednesday that “troops will move to clear areas of terrorists and infrastructure, and seize extensive territory that will be added to the state of Israel’s security areas”.
He also said he was calling on Palestinian civilians to flee areas where fighting had returned following the collapse of a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas last month and to “act now to overthrow Hamas and return all the hostages”.
The announcement followed a night of intensive airstrikes on Khan Younis and Rafah in southern Gaza, which hospital officials said had killed at least 21 people. The bodies of five women, one of them pregnant, and two children were brought to Nasser hospital on Wednesday morning, medics said, as well as three men from the same family.
There were also reports early on Wednesday of at least two airstrikes on Gaza City and Israeli troop movement in the Rafah area. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it had deployed an extra division to southern Gaza earlier in the day.
The Israeli military issued sweeping evacuation orders last week for people in Rafah and a swath of land stretching northwards towards Khan Younis to move to al-Mawasi, an area on the shore that Israel has designated as a humanitarian zone but repeatedly bombed.
Katz did not elaborate on how much land Israel intends to capture, but according to the Israeli human rights group Gisha, the IDF has seized buffer zones around Gaza’s edges totalling 62 sq km, or 17% of the strip, since the war began in October 2023.
Israel renewed intensive bombing across Gaza on 18 March, followed by the redeployment of ground troops, bringing to an abrupt end an almost two-month-old ceasefire and exchanges of Israeli hostages held by Palestinian militant groups and Palestinians in Israeli jails.
According to the terms of the truce, the sides were supposed to negotiate implementing further phases of the deal during the first 42-day-long stage, but the Israeli government repeatedly postponed the talks.
The latest UN estimate, from 23 March, suggested more than 140,000 people had been displaced since the end of the ceasefire. More than 90% of the strip’s population of 2.3 million have been forced to flee their homes during the conflict, many of them multiple times.
Hundreds of people have been killed in IDF airstrikes and Israel has also cut off humanitarian aid, food and fuel to the strip in an effort to pressure Hamas.
Efforts led by Qatari and Egyptian mediators to get talks aimed at ending the war back on track have not yet led to a breakthrough. The resumption of fighting in Gaza has fuelled protests in Israel against the government from supporters of the remaining hostages and their families.
The 7 October 2023 Hamas attack on southern Israel, in which Israel says 1,200 people, the majority of them civilians, were killed and a further 250 taken captive, was the trigger for the conflict in the Gaza Strip, the worst war between Israel and the Palestinians in more than 70 years of fighting.
Israel’s retaliatory military campaign in Gaza has killed at least 50,357 people, the majority of them civilians, according to the territory’s health ministry.
