Israel announced a significant expansion of military operations in Gaza on Wednesday, saying that the large areas of the enclave would be captured and added to their security areas, accompanied by a large -scale evacuation of the population.
In a statement, the Minister of Defense, Israel Katz, said that evacuations would take place from areas where there were struggles, while urged the Gazans to eliminate Hamas and return the Israeli hostages as the only way to end the war.
He said that the operation would erase militants and infrastructure « and capture large areas that will be added to the security areas of the State of Israel. »
Base Naim, a senior Hamas official, told the Israeli hostages of Reuters only to be released through negotiations, not by military pressure.
The Israeli military had already issued evacuation warnings in Gazans living in the city of southern Rafah and towards the city of Khan Younis, telling them to move to the Al-Mawasi area on the shore, previously designated a humanitarian area.
The Gaza Ministry of Health said that 53 people died on Wednesday on Israeli strikes, with 19 people including children killed on a strike at a United Nations Clinic used to house displaced people.
The military of Israel said that he had hit a building previously used as a clinic that said it was a Hamas command and control center to plan attacks and that the military had used surveillance to mitigate the risk for civilians. Hamas denied the use of the building and called the Israeli accusation a « blatant manufacturing ».
Women, 3 months between the last murders on strikes
Reuters video of the consequences of the strike showed blood on a flat when rescue workers pulled out their legs on their legs.
At the scene of a strike in Khan Younis, Rida al-Jabbour endured a tiny shoe and pointed to a bloodshed wall, while relating how a neighbor had been killed along with his three-month-old baby.
« From the moment the strike took place, we have not been able to sit or sleep or anything, » he said, describing how rescue workers could not separate the remains from the dead.
The Katz Declaration did not make clear the amount of land that Israel sought to empower -or if the movement represented a permanent annexation of the territory, which would provide additional pressure on a population that already lived in one of the busiest areas in the world.
According to the Israeli rights group Gisha, Israel has already taken control of about 62 square kilometers or around 17 percent of the total area of Gaza, as part of a buffer area around the edges of the enclave.
Israeli is planning to facilitate voluntary departure
At the same time, Israeli leaders have said that they are planning to facilitate the voluntary departure of the Palestinians of the enclave, after the President of the United States, Donald Trump, would ask that he be evacuated and redeveloped permanently as a coastal complex under the control of the United States.
Katz’s statements came after the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu repeated calls to Hamas to disarm 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 move. But although the extermination has passed us and the extreme anguish, as a citizen, was displaced eight times, with the will of God we will be firm, » said Amer Al-Farra, a Palestinian in Gaza.
Gaza Israeli aerial attacks damaged the Nasser Hospital and killed at least 65 people in a 24 -hour period, according to Palestinian health authorities. Continuous attacks have led some agencies to reduce their footprint in the region.
Israeli leaders have been encouraged by protest signs in Gaza against Hamas, the militant group that has controlled the enclave since 2007, and the extended operation appeared at least partly aimed at increasing civil pressure on its leaders.
« I call Gaza residents to act now to eliminate Hamas and return all those abducted, » Katz said in his statement. « This is the only way to end the war. »
War expands
Israel resumed aerial attacks on Gaza last month and sent land troops again, after two months of relative calm after the conclusion of a truce supported by the United States to allow the Hamas hostages exchange for Palestinian prisoners to Israeli prisons.
Hundreds of Palestinians have been killed since the resumption of strikes, and Israel has also reduced aid to the enclave, saying that Hamas was taken.
The efforts led by the Qatari and Egyptian mediators to get conversations aimed at ending the return war on the court, so far they have not been able to move forward and the return of the military to Gaza has fueled the protests in Israel by families and supporters of some of the hostages.
As the operation in Gaza has increased, Israel has also reached goals south of Lebanon and SyriaWith a strike on a Hezbollah commander in the South Beirut suburbs on Tuesday, which stressed even more cessation agreements that greatly stopped the fight in January.
Israel invaded Gaza after the devastating attack in southern Israel by thousands of Hamas -led gunmen who killed 1,200 people according to the Israelis and saw 251 assumed as hostages.
The Israeli campaign has killed more than 50,000 Palestinians, according to Palestinian health officials, and has devastated the Gaza Strip, forcing almost the entire population of 2.3 million of their homes.
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