The military assault of Israel on the Gaza Strip continued for a fourth day while its land forces expand their operations in the north and southern Gaza and the Israeli Defense Minister threatens to grasp land in the coastal enclave.
Defense Minister Israel Katz said on Friday that Israeli forces “would intensify” the military campaign against Hamas and would use “all military and civil pressures, including the evacuation of the Gaza population in the south and implementing Trump’s voluntary migration president for Gaza residents”.
Katz asked the army to “seize additional areas in Gaza, to evacuate the population and to extend the security zones around Gaza to protect the Israeli communities and soldiers (Israeli army),” said local media.
He also warned that Israel would seize land in Gaza until Hamas agrees to release all the captives still held in the strip.
“The more Hamas persists in its refusal to release the hostages, the more it will lose a territory, which will be annexed to Israel,” said Katz quoted by the Jerusalem Post Journal.
“If the hostages are not released, Israel will continue to take more and more territory in the band for permanent control.”
While the Israeli land forces crowded more deeply in Gaza, the Israeli planes continued a fierce bombardment of the enclave. Five people, three of whom, were killed in an Israeli air strike which struck a house in the Tuffah district of Gaza City in the north of the enclave, while two people – a woman and her daughter – were killed by tank fire in Abassan near Khan Younis in the south, according to Palestinian doctors.
Later, the Israeli army said it had intercepted two projectiles from northern Gaza after activating alerts in the Israeli city of southern Ashkelon. No Palestinian group immediately claimed responsibility.
The developments come after the Israeli troops invaded the Shaboura region in Rafah, the most southern city of Gaza near the Egyptian border, and Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza on Thursday. Earlier this week, Israel said that he had closed the main North-South path of the territory as part of its expanding ground operations.
The Hind Khoudary of Tel Aviv Tribune, reporting from Central Gaza, said that according to the residents of Beit Lahiya and Rafah, Israeli forces have given no warning of their activities.
“They did not throw leaflets or dropped warnings to ask people to evacuate these areas,” she said.
The ground operations intervene after Israel broke on Tuesday a ceasefire of almost two months in Gaza with an incessant wave of bombing after having imposed a renewed blockage on Palestinian territory. According to the Gaza Ministry of Health, more than 590 people, including around 200 children, were killed during renewed attacks.
Israel said he had resumed his attacks after Hamas did not accept a new version of a cease-fire. The Israeli authorities wanted an extension of the first phase of the three -phase truce and the release of most of the 59 captives remaining in Gaza – of which about two dozens are considered alive – without committing to ending the war.
The Palestinian armed group stressed that he wanted to stick to the original agreement signed in January, according to which the two parties should have started negotiations on the second phase of the agreement, which would address the release of remaining captives, the withdrawal of Israeli troops from the enclave and a permanent cessation of hostilities.
The United States, a prisoned ally of Israel, insisted that Hamas was to blame for Israel, resuming its bombing of Gaza.
“Hamas assumes full responsibility for the current war in Gaza and for the resumption of hostilities. Each death would have been avoided if Hamas had accepted the bridge proposal that the United States offered last Wednesday,” the acting American ambassador Dorothy Shea told the United Nations Security Council on Friday.
Lack of help, hospitals “overwhelmed”
UNRWA, the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, said the situation in Gaza was seriously concerned in the midst of huge reductions in aid supplies.
“It is the longest period since the start of the conflict in October 2023 that no supply entered Gaza,” said Sam Rose of UNRWA, speaking of Central Gaza. “The progress we have made as a help system in the last six weeks of the ceasefire is reversed.”
“We can stretch this by giving people less, but we are talking about days, not weeks,” said Rose about the duration of help, adding that six of the 25 bakeries that the World Food Program supported had to close.
Khoudary said that health workers and Strips’ hospitals were exceeded during the renewed assault in Israel.
“We are talking about 18 days of zero aid trucks entering the Gaza Strip. No medical supplies truck has entered the Gaza Strip,” she said.
“Speaking to doctors, they say that most of these injuries are very serious and that most of the injured are children, women and the elderly.”
In addition, the lack of fuel in the coastal enclave worsens the situation. “Most Gaza hospitals may collapse and close if they do not receive fuel in the coming days,” said Khoudary.
On March 2, Israel blocked all humanitarian aid in Gaza after the expiration of the first phase of the ceasefire, cutting food, medications and fuel.
This has led to a global conviction with the European nations warning that the blockade could violate international humanitarian law.
