Israeli troops were expanding their control of ground in northern Gaza, the military said yesterday, days after the government announced plans to seize large areas with an operation in the south.
Soldiers carrying out the operation in Shejaia, a suburb east of Gaza City in the north, were letting civilians out via organised routes, as troops moved in to expand the area defined by Israel as a security zone in Gaza, a statement said.
Images circulating on social media showed an Israeli tank on Al Muntar hill in Shejaia, in a position that gave it clear sight over Gaza City and beyond to the shoreline. Shelling on the eastern side of Gaza was non-stop, a local health official said in a text message.
Evacuation
Where Israeli forces moved in, hundreds of residents had already left a day earlier, carrying belongings or loading them on to vans or donkey carts, after the military issued the latest in a series of evacuation warnings that now cover around a third of the Gaza Strip, according to the United Nations.
Israel resumed its operation in Gaza with a heavy series of air strikes on March 18 and sent troops back in after a two-month pause during which 38 hostages were returned in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners and detainees.
Efforts at restarting negotiations, brokered by Egypt and Qatar, have stalled. “There are currently no contacts,” a Palestinian official close to the mediation effort told Reuters.
Global medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres said yesterday it was appalled and saddened by the killing of one of its staff by an air strike in Gaza, the second within two weeks. Hussam Al Loulou died in the strike on April 1 in central Gaza, alongside his wife and 28-year-old daughter, the organisation said.
Over the past two weeks, more than 280,000 people have been displaced in Gaza, according to UN humanitarian agency OCHA.
In Gaza City, local people said Israeli strikes had hit a water desalination plant that was vital in providing clean drinking water. Aid supplies have been cut off for weeks.
On the southern edge of Gaza, Israeli troops have been consolidating around the ruins of the city of Rafah and the UN says 65 per cent of the enclave is now within ‘no go’ areas, under active displacement orders, or both.
Ministers have said the operation will continue until 59 hostages still held in Gaza are returned. Hamas says it will free them only under a deal that brings a permanent end to the war. Yesterday, a spokesperson for the group’s armed wing said half of the hostages were being held in areas where people had been told to evacuate.
“If the enemy is concerned about the lives of these hostages, it must immediately negotiate their evacuation or release,” Abo Ubaida said in a message on Telegram.
Israel has not fully explained its long-term aim for the areas it is now seizing as a security zone, extending an existing buffer area along the edge of the enclave hundreds of metres into the Gaza Strip.
Gaza health authorities said at least 35 Palestinians were killed, most in southern areas of Gaza.
Alongside, the Trump administration moved forward with the sale of more than 20,000 US-made assault rifles to Israel last month, according to a document seen by Reuters and a source familiar with the matter, pushing ahead with a sale that the administration of former president Joe Biden delayed over concerns they could be used by extremist Israeli settlers.
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