Israel announced a major expansion of military operations in Gaza yesterday, saying large areas of the enclave would be seized and added to its security zones, accompanied by large-scale evacuations of the population.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said troops were seizing an area he called the Morag Axis, a reference to a former Israeli settlement once located between the cities of Rafah and Khan Younis in the south of the Gaza Strip, some 3-4km from the southern border.
“Because we are now dividing the Strip and we are increasing pressure step by step so they will give us our hostages,” he said in a video message.
He said the move, which would cut off Rafah from Khan Younis, would give Israel control of a second axis in southern Gaza in addition to the so-called “Philadelphi Corridor”, running along the border with Egypt, which Israel sees as a key line preventing the smuggling of weapons into Gaza.
Earlier yesterday, Defence Minister Israel Katz announced that troops would be widening their operation in Gaza to clear out fighters and infrastructure “and seize large areas that will be added to the security zones of the state of Israel”.
The Israeli military had already issued evacuation warnings to Gazans living in some southern districts and Palestinian radio reported that the area around Rafah was almost completely empty following the evacuation orders.
“As of today, 64 per cent of Gaza is under active forced displacement orders or falling within the so-called ‘buffer zone’,” said Jonathan Whittall, the top UN aid official for Gaza and the West Bank. “Nowhere and no one is safe in Gaza.”
Gaza’s Health Ministry said at least 60 people were killed in Israeli strikes yesterday, with 19 people including children killed in a strike at a UN clinic being used to house displaced people.
Israel’s military said it had struck a building previously used as a clinic that it said was serving as a Hamas command and control centre to plan attacks.
Reuters video of the aftermath of the strike showed blood on a floor as rescue workers removed bodies on stretchers.
At the site of another strike in Khan Younis, Rida Al Jabbour held up a tiny shoe and pointed at a blood-spattered wall as she related how a neighbour had been killed along with her three-month-old baby.
A Gaza family’s open admission this week that they killed an officer from the Hamas-run police force after they said a relative was shot dead has added to signs of popular dissent against the fighter group after 18 months of war with Israel.
It drew a warning from the Hamas-run interior ministry that actions that undermined public order would not be tolerated.
But following protests against Hamas by hundreds of demonstrators in northern Gaza last month, the incident underscored the increasing willingness of some Gaza civilians to voice criticism or act against Hamas.
Netanyahu begins a four-day visit to Hungary today, defying an International Criminal Court arrest warrant over allegations of war crimes in Gaza.
As a founding member of the ICC, Hungary is obliged to arrest and hand over anyone subject to a warrant from the court but Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban made clear when he issued the invitation that Hungary would not respect the ruling.
Meanwhile, Germany said it assisted 19 German nationals and their close family members in leaving Gaza and flying to Germany after negotiating their departure with Israel.
The 19 German nationals and their 14 Palestinian family members left Gaza at the Kerem Shalom border crossing and were flown to Leipzig in eastern Germany on Tuesday.
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