Israel’s military assault on the Gaza Strip has continued for a fourth day as its ground forces expand their operations in northern and southern Gaza and the Israeli defence minister threatens to seize land in the coastal enclave.
Defence Minister Israel Katz said on Friday that Israeli forces would “intensify” the military campaign against Hamas and use “all military and civilian pressure, including evacuation of the Gaza population south and implementing United States President [Donald] Trump’s voluntary migration plan for Gaza residents”.
Katz instructed the army “to seize additional areas in Gaza, evacuate the population and expand security zones around Gaza to protect Israeli communities and [Israeli army] soldiers”, local media quoted him as saying.
He also warned that Israel would seize land in Gaza until Hamas agrees to release all captives still held in the Strip.
“The more Hamas persists in its refusal to release the hostages, the more territory it will lose, which will be annexed to Israel,” Katz was quoted by The Jerusalem Post newspaper as saying.
“If the hostages are not released, Israel will continue to take more and more territory in the Strip for permanent control.”
As Israeli ground forces pressed deeper into Gaza, Israeli jets continued a ferocious bombardment of the enclave. Five people, including three children, were killed in an Israeli air strike that hit a house in the Tuffah district of Gaza City in the enclave’s north, while two people – a woman and her daughter – were killed by tank fire in Abassan near Khan Younis in the south, according to Palestinian medics.
Later, the Israeli military said it had intercepted two projectiles fired from northern Gaza after alerts were activated in the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon. No Palestinian group immediately claimed responsibility.
The developments come after Israeli troops invaded the Shaboura area of Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost city near the Egyptian border, and Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza, late on Thursday. Earlier this week, Israel said it had closed off the territory’s main north-south route as part of its expanding ground operations.
Al Jazeera’s Hind Khoudary, reporting from central Gaza, said according to residents in Beit Lahiya and Rafah, Israeli forces did not give any warnings of their activities.
“They did not throw leaflets or drop any warnings asking people to evacuate those areas,” she said.
The ground operations come after Israel shattered a nearly two-month ceasefire in Gaza on Tuesday with a relentless wave of bombardments after imposing a renewed blockade on the Palestinian territory. More than 590 people, including about 200 children, have been killed in the renewed attacks, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health.
Israel said it resumed its attacks after Hamas failed to agree to a new version of a ceasefire. Israeli authorities wanted an extension of the first phase of the three-phase truce and the release of most of the 59 remaining captives in Gaza – of which about two dozen are believed to be alive – without committing to end the war.
The Palestinian armed group has stressed that it wanted to stick to the original accord signed in January, according to which the two sides should have started negotiations on the second phase of the deal, which would address the release of the remaining captives, the withdrawal of Israeli troops from the enclave and a permanent cessation of hostilities.
The United States, Israel’s staunch ally, has insisted that Hamas was to blame for Israel resuming its bombardment of Gaza.
“Hamas bears full responsibility for the ongoing war in Gaza and for the resumption of hostilities. Every death would have been avoided had Hamas accepted the bridge proposal that the United States offered last Wednesday,” acting US Ambassador Dorothy Shea told the United Nations Security Council on Friday.
Lack of aid, hospitals ‘overwhelmed’
UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, said the situation in Gaza is gravely concerning amid huge reductions in aid supplies.
“This is the longest period since the start of conflict in October 2023 that no supplies whatsoever have entered Gaza,” UNRWA’s Sam Rose told reporters, speaking from central Gaza. “The progress we made as an aid system over the last six weeks of the ceasefire is being reversed.”
“We can stretch that by giving people less, but we are talking days, not weeks,” Rose said of how long the aid will last, adding that six of 25 bakeries that the World Food Programme supports have had to close down.
Khoudary said health workers and hospitals in the Strip have been overwhelmed during Israel’s renewed assault.
“We are talking about 18 days of zero aid trucks entering the Gaza Strip. Not one single truck of medical supplies has been entering the Gaza Strip,” she said.
“Talking to doctors, they are saying that most of these injuries are very serious and most of the injured are children, women and the elderly.”
Moreover, the lack of fuel in the coastal enclave is making the situation worse. “Most of Gaza’s hospitals are at risk of collapsing and shutting down if they do not receive fuel in the coming days,” Khoudary said.
On March 2, Israel blocked all humanitarian aid into Gaza after the first phase of the ceasefire expired, cutting off food, medicine and fuel.
This resulted in global condemnation with European nations warning that the blockade could breach international humanitarian law.
