Agencies
Tel Aviv/Gaza
Israel’s defence minister has announced a major expansion of the Israeli ground assault on Gaza, promising to seize large areas of the Palestinian enclave and incorporate them into so-called “security” zones.
The announcement on Wednesday came as Israel’s military killed more than 50 Palestinians in attacks across Gaza, including one that targeted a UN clinic. Israel also continued a total blockade of the Strip for a 31st day, forcing all bakeries there to shut down.
In a statement, Defence Minister Israel Katz said Israeli troops would move to clear areas “of terrorists and infrastructure, and capture extensive territory that will be added to the State of Israel’s security areas”.
Katz, however, did not make clear how much land Israel intends to seize. The Israeli military has already set up a significant buffer zone within Gaza, expanding an area that existed around the edges of the enclave before the war, and adding a large area in the so-called Netzarim Corridor through the middle of the territory.
Its renewed assault comes as part of a “maximum pressure” campaign aimed at forcing Hamas to renegotiate the ceasefire deal agreed upon in January. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wants Hamas to release the 59 Israeli captives remaining in Gaza in exchange for Palestinians held in Israeli jails as well as humanitarian aid for Gaza, but without committing to ending the war and withdrawing troops from the enclave.
Hamas, however, has insisted on a return to the previously agreed deal and has offered to free all the captives at once in return for a permanent ceasefire.
Israel responded by resuming its bombardment of Gaza and has killed more than 1,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, since March 18.
Gideon Levy, a columnist at the Israeli news outlet Haaretz, said he sees no end in sight to the bloodshed.
“Hamas will not give up because they have nothing to lose. And Israel cannot be stopped,” Levy told Al Jazeera. “We are in a situation of desperation. A war continues without any goal. The bludgeon continues without any purpose.”
On Monday, the Israeli military ordered all residents of Rafah in southern Gaza to flee and on Tuesday, it expanded the forced displacement notices to Beit Hanoon, Beit Lahiya and nearby areas in the north of the enclave.
According to The Times of Israel, the military has deployed its 36th Division to Gaza for the expanded offensive, and the soldiers entered the Strip early on Wednesday morning.
Dozens of Palestinian families in the Khirbet al-Adas area of Rafah told Al Jazeera they have been trapped by the Israeli onslaught and have issued a distress call, appealing for international help to evacuate them to safety.
Palestinian medics said that Wednesday’s victims included 12 people killed when Israeli forces targeted a building in southern Khan Younis. At least 19 more, including nine children, were killed in an attack on a UN clinic in Jabalia, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.
Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azzoum, reporting from Deir el-Balah in central Gaza, said people in Rafah, where casualties were also reported, were fleeing with what little they could gather of their personal belongings. A year ago, the city, located on the Gaza border with Egypt, housed some 1.4 million people, including more than a million who had been displaced by Israeli attacks elsewhere in the enclave.
But Israel invaded the city in May, forcing nearly all of its population out. According to United Nations estimates, only 50,000 remained there by July.
Residents only started to come back after the Israeli military withdrew partially following the ceasefire in January.
“And now people are on the move again. Knowing full well that nowhere is safe in Gaza,” Abu Azzoum said. He noted media reports in the United States and Israel that said the Israeli military is aiming to capture about 25 percent of Gaza’s territory as part of its pressure campaign against Hamas.
The UN humanitarian agency (OCHA), meanwhile, said in a post on X that “tens of thousands of civilians are fleeing Rafah under gunfire”.
One elderly man told the agency that Israeli forces shot at him and other civilians as they fled.
“Some were injured and screaming but I couldn’t look back out of fear,” he recounted in the video.“I had nothing with me,” another woman said. “We left and climbed the sand dunes. We walked on. When I escaped, the [Israeli] tanks burned tents along the road.”
