Israel says it should seize ‘massive areas’ of Gaza and ‘incorporate’ them as ‘safety zones’ in a bid to eradicate Hamas
Israel’s defence minister has announced that its army will seize ‘large areas’ of Gaza in a major expansion of its military operations in the war-torn Palestinian territory.
Israel Katz said in a statement that Israel would expand its presence in Gaza to ‘destroy and clear the area of terrorists and terrorist infrastructure’.
The expanded operation would ‘seize large areas that will be incorporated into Israeli security zones’, he said, without saying how much territory Israel would take.
The campaign will see Israel try to occupy 25 per cent of the besieged territory over the next two to three weeks, according to a senior Israeli official.
They told Axios that the mission is part of a ‘maximum pressure’ strategy aimed at forcing Hamas to released more hostages.
If no new ceasefire deal is reached, the operation could displace most of the two million Palestinian civilians, who already live in one of the world’s most densely populated territories, to a small ‘humanitarian zone’.
‘Expanding the operation this morning will increase the pressure on the Hamas murderers and also on the population in Gaza and advance the achievement of the sacred and important goal for all of us,’ Katz said on social media this morning.
‘I call on the residents of Gaza to act now to remove Hamas and return all the hostages. This is the only way to end the war.’
Internally displaced Palestinians walk along a street near the rubble of destroyed buidlings after fleeing northern Gaza following an Israeli army evacuation order
The campaign will see Israel try to occupy 25 per cent of the besieged territory over the next two to three weeks
Israel Katz said in a statement that Israel would expand its presence in Gaza to ‘destroy and clear the area of terrorists and terrorist infrastructure’
The announcement comes after sweeping evacuation orders and warnings from Katz last week that the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) would soon ‘operate with full force’ in additional parts of Hamas-run Gaza.
He said he had directed troops to ‘take control of more ground and hold it permanently’ if hostages were not released.
Israel restarted intense bombing of Gaza on March 18 before launching a new ground offensive, ending a nearly two-month ceasefire in the war with Hamas.
Benjamin Netanyahu‘s government blamed Hamas for rejecting a new US proposal to extend the ceasefire and free the remaining 59 hostages still held in Gaza, while Hamas accused Israel of violating the original deal they made in January.
The war was sparked by Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people, while Israel’s retaliatory campaign has killed more than 50,000 people in Gaza, the majority of them civilians, according to the territory’s health ministry.
It was claimed yesterday that Hamas has dropped some 3,400 deaths from its count of the number of people killed by Israel in Gaza.
Salo Aizenberg, from the US-based Honest Reporting group, told the Telegraph that the terror group’s March 2025 casualty update had removed thousands of people it previously listed as dead.
The Hamas-run Gaza ministry of health has released casualty lists in PDF form, detailing those killed in Israeli military actions.
Israel says it has killed 20,000 Hamas combatants in its battle in the enclave, without providing evidence, and claims to do all it can do mitigate civilian casualties, despite large scale bombing and ground assaults.
Behind a tent camp for displaced Palestinians, smoke rises from a building after it was targeted by an Israeli army strike in Gaza City
Journalist Mohammed Saleh al-Bardawil, his wife and children were killed in an attack on a residential area on April 1
Israeli security forces block protestors as they try to disperse an anti-government demonstration calling for an end to the war in Gaza and the return of all the hostages
Gaza’s civil defence agency said Israeli air strikes on two homes in the war-ravaged Palestinian territory on Wednesday killed at least 15 people overnight, including children.
‘Thirteen martyrs, including children, were killed at dawn when occupation forces (the Israeli army) bombed a house sheltering displaced people in central Khan Yunis, in southern Gaza,’ civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP, adding two other people were killed in an Israeli strike on a house in the Nuseirat camp, in central Gaza.
About a fifth of the territory is now covered by Israeli evacuation orders, with the IDF warning residents in large parts of the south on Monday that its forces were ‘returning to intense operations’ in the area.
Citizens in Rafah and parts of neighbouring Khan Younis were told to leave immediately for the al-Mawasi humanitarian zone, with many who had returned to their homes during the two-month ceasefire being forced to flee again.
The Hostages and Missing Families Forum in Israel said they were ‘horrified to wake up’ to the news of the expanded military operation. In a statement, the group urged the Israeli government to prioritise securing the release of all hostages still held in Gaza.
Kobi Ohel, the father of one of the remaining Israeli hostages in Gaza, Alon, told Hebrew media outlet Ynet: ‘I woke up to another day that I am worried and afraid for Alon’s fate.
‘From what we know and have seen, fighting did not bring the kidnapped people home, and the way to return them is through a deal. Alon needs to be returned and saved.’
But negotiations over a new ceasefire deal that includes their release have failed to progress.
A Palestinian man walks near a bakery that has stopped operating due to a lack of flour and fuel
Displaced Palestinians carry their belongings on the outskirts of Gaza City
Palestinians who fled Rafah after Israeli evacuation orders, arrive in Khan Younis
Israel has reportedly rejected a deal proposed by White House envoy Steve Witkoff that would have brokered a 40 to 50 day cessation in hostilities.
They are now demanding the release of 11 living hostages and 16 dead hostages for a 40-day ceasefire, according to reports.
The humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip has dramatically deteriorated in recent weeks, according to aid workers on the ground, with Israel accused of systematically starving residents, which it denies.
On Monday, the UN dismissed as ‘ridiculous’ an assertion by Israel that there was enough food in the Gaza Strip to last for a long period of time, despite the closure of all 25 bakeries in the enclave supported by the World Food Programme.
No food, water, fuel or medicine has entered the Gaza Strip since Israel imposed a total blockade on March 2.
Meanwhile, a new report by UNICEF, Save the Children and other groups in Gaza says 95 percent of the territory’s schools have been damaged since conflict broke out.
Israeli forces have also continued their military operation in the occupied West Bank, with one man shot dead in Nablus this morning and others detained in other areas.
