Israel to expand Gaza’s military operations with large -scale evacuations while the last strikes kill 53
Israel has announced an important expansion of military operations in Gaza on Wednesday, stating that large areas of the encycling would have been seized and added to its safety areas, accompanied by large -scale evacuation of the population.
In a declaration, the defense minister Israel Katz said that evacuations take place from the areas where there were fighting, urge Gazas to eliminate Hamas and return the Israeli hostages as the only way to end the war.
He said the operation will clarify militants and infrastructures “and seize large areas that will be added to the safety areas of the state of Israel”.
Basem Naim, a high Hamas official, said that the Israeli hostages to Reuters would be released only through negotiations, not through military pressure.
The Israeli army had already emitted evacuation warnings to Gazan who lived in the southern city of Rafah and towards the city of Khan Youunis, telling them to move to the Al-Mawasi area on the shore, previously designated a humanitarian area.
The Ministry of Health of Gaza said that 53 people were killed in the Israeli strikes on Wednesday, with 19 people, including children killed in a strike in a United Nations clinic, used to host displaced people.
Israel’s army claimed to have hit a building previously used as a clinic that according to him was a Hamas command and control center to plan attacks and that the military had used surveillance to mitigate the risk to civilians. Hamas denied the use of the building and called the Israeli accusation a “clear manufacture”.
Women, 3 months among the last killed on strike
The Reuters video of the consequences of the strike showed blood on a floor while the rescue removed the bodies on the stretchers.
On the site of a strike in Khan Youunis, Rida al-Jabbour raised a small shoe and indicated a wall swept by the blood as he reported as a neighbor had been killed together with his three-month-old boy.
“From the moment when the strike occurred, we were unable to sit or sleep or anything else,” he said, describing how rescue were not able to separate the remains of those killed.
Katz’s declaration did not clarify how much land Israel intended to seize or if the move represented a permanent annexation of the territory, which would have added further pressure on a population that already lived in one of the most crowded areas in the world.
According to the Israeli Rights Group Gisha, Israel has already taken control of about 62 square kilometers or about 17 % of the total area of Gaza, as part of a bearing area around the edges of the enclave.
Israeli plans to facilitate voluntary departure
At the same time, Israeli leaders said they intended to facilitate the voluntary departure of the Palestinians from the Enclave, after the President of the United States Donald Trump asked that he had evacuated and permanently redeveloped as a coastal resort under the control of the United States.
Katz’s observations came after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu repeated the requests to disarm Hamas and said that the application of military pressure was the best way to recover the remaining 59 hostages.
“It seems that Netanyahu will not stop his war in Gaza until we are displaced. But despite the extermination that happens to us and the extreme anguish-citizen I have been cleared eight times-with the will of God we will remain firmly,” said Amer-Farra, Palestinian in Gaza.
The Israeli air attacks in the Nasser hospital damaged and killed at least 65 people in a period of 24 hours, said the Palestinian health authorities. Continuous attacks led some help agencies to reduce their imprint in the region.
The Israeli leaders were encouraged by signs of protest in Gaza against Hamas, the militant group that has controlled the enclave since 2007 and the expanded operation appeared at least partially aimed at increasing civil pressure on its leaders.
“I ask Gaza’s residents to act now to eliminate Hamas and return all the kidnapped,” Katz said in his statement. “This is the only way to end the war.”
The war expands
Israel resumed air attacks on Gaza last month and sent the earth troops, after two months of relative calm after the conclusion of a truce supported by the United States to allow the exchange of hostages held by Hamas for the Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons.
Hundreds of Palestinians were killed by the resumption of strikes and Israel also cut aid to the enclave, saying that most of it was taken by Hamas.
The efforts led by the mediators of Qatar and the Egyptians to obtain talks aimed at ending the war on the track have so far not managed to make progress and the return of the military to Gaza fueled the protests in Israel from families and supporters of some hostages.
While the operation in Gaza has increased, Israel has also affected goals in southern Lebanon and SyriaWith a strike on a Hezbollah commander in the southern outskirts of Beirut Tuesday who further proven to be tested the chords of the fire that substantially interrupted the fighting in January.
Israel invaded Gaza following the devastating attack on Southern Israel from thousands of armed men led by Hamas who killed 1,200 people according to Israeli counts and saw 251 taken as hostages.
The Israeli campaign killed over 50,000 Palestinians, according to Palestinian health officials, and devastated the Gaza strip, forcing almost the entire population of 2.3 million from their homes.
