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Israel’s announcement that the army will seize “large areas” of the Palestinian territory comes after a warning last week that the military would soon “operate with full force” in additional parts of Hamas-run Gaza.
Israel restarted intense bombing of Gaza on 18 March and then launched a new ground offensive, ending a nearly two-month ceasefire in the war with Hamas.
The war was sparked by Hamas’s 7 October, 2023, attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Israel’s retaliatory military campaign has killed at least 50,357 people in Gaza, the majority of them civilians, according to the territory’s health ministry.
As of 23 March, more than 140,000 people had been displaced again since the end of the ceasefire, according to the latest UN estimate — and tens of thousands more are estimated to have fled under evacuation orders over the past week.
Every time families have moved during the war, they have had to leave behind belongings and start nearly from scratch, finding food, water and shelter. Now, with no fuel entering, transportation is even more difficult, so many are fleeing with almost nothing.
As Israel orders wide new evacuations across the Gaza Strip, Palestinians say they are crushed by exhaustion and hopelessness at the prospect of fleeing once again, the AP reports.
Many are packing a few belongings and trudging off in search of new shelters. Some say they just can’t bear to move.
When ordered out of Jabaliya in northern Gaza, Ihab Suliman and his family could only grab some food and blankets before making their way south 19 March. It was their eighth time fleeing over the past 18 months of war.
“There is no longer any taste to life,” said Suliman, a former university professor. “Life and death have become one and the same for us.”
Suliman is among the tens of thousands of Palestinians who have fled temporary shelters since Israel shattered a 2-month-old ceasefire on 18 March with renewed bombardment and ground assaults.
Israel’s defence minister did not make clear how much land Israel intends to seize.
But the country 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 security area in the so-called Netzarim corridor through the middle of Gaza.
At the same time, Israeli leaders have said they plan to facilitate voluntary departure of Palestinians from the enclave, after US President Donald Trump called for it to be permanently evacuated and redeveloped as a coastal resort under US control, the so-called “Riveria of the Middle East”.
A video of that bizarre plan to refresh your memory.
A reminder the creator of that AI generated video depicting the Gaza Strip as a Dubai-style paradise said it was intended as a political satire of Trump’s “megalomaniac idea”.
The move in Gaza comes after the US said it was adding an extra aircraft carrier to its Middle East deployment.
The Carl Vinson will join the Harry S. Truman in the Middle East “to continue promoting regional stability, deter aggression, and protect the free flow of commerce in the region,” Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said in a statement on Tuesday.
US forces have struck Yemen’s Houthi rebels with near-daily air strikes in a campaign aimed at ending the threat they pose to civilian shipping and military vessels in the region.
“To complement the CENTCOM maritime posture, the secretary also ordered the deployment of additional squadrons and other air assets that will further reinforce our defensive air-support capabilities,” Parnell said, referring to the US military command responsible for the region.
The Huthis began targeting shipping in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden after the start of the Gaza war in 2023, claiming solidarity with Palestinians.
Opening summary
Welcome to live coverage of the Israel-Gaza war and the Middle East crisis.
Israeli defence minister Israel Katz has announced an expansion of the military operation in Gaza.
He said on Wednesday morning that large areas of the territory would be seized and added to the security zones of Israel.
He said in a statement there would be a large-scale evacuation of the population from fighting areas and called on Palestinians there to eliminate Hamas and return Israeli hostages, saying this was the only way to end the war.
We will bring you more details as soon as we can.
