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Agence France-Presse

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday that the military was “dissecting” the Gaza Strip and seizing territory to pressure Hamas into freeing hostages still held in the enclave.
It came as rescuers said 34 people were killed in continued Israeli strikes on the territory, including on a UN building.
The military is “dissecting the (Gaza) Strip and increasing the pressure step by step so that (Hamas) will return our hostages”, Netanyahu said in a statement, adding that Israel “is seizing territory, striking terrorists, and destroying infrastructure”.
He added that the army was “taking control of the Morag Axis”, a strip of land that was expected to run between the southern governorates of Khan Younis and Rafah.

The name of the axis refers to a former Israeli settlement that was evacuated when Israel unilaterally pulled out of Gaza in 2005.
Defence Minister Israel Katz earlier said Israel would bolster its military presence in the Palestinian territory to “destroy and clear the area of terrorists and terrorist infrastructure”.
The operation would “seize large areas that will be incorporated into Israeli security zones” already under military control, he said in a statement, without specifying how much territory.
But Hamas has remained defiant and rejected the latest Israeli proposal on a Gaza truce, two officials from the movement told Agence France-Presse on Wednesday.
Egypt, Qatar and the United States were attempting to broker a new ceasefire and secure the release of the remaining Israeli hostages.
“Hamas has decided not to follow up on the latest Israeli proposal presented through the mediators,” one of the officials said on the condition of anonymity.

They accused Israel of “blocking a proposal from Egypt and Qatar and trying to derail any agreement”.
On Sunday, Netanyahu offered to let Hamas leaders leave Gaza but demanded the group abandon its arms. Hamas has signalled willingness to cede power in Gaza but has called disarmament a “red line”.
Gaza’s civil defence agency said an Israeli strike that targeted a UN building “housing a medical clinic in Jabalia refugee camp” killed at least 19 people, including nine children.
The Israeli army said it struck Hamas militants “inside a command and control centre” in north Gaza’s Jabalia. It separately confirmed the building housed a UN clinic.
The Palestinian foreign ministry, based in the occupied West Bank, condemned the “massacre” at the clinic run by UNRWA, the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, and called for “serious international pressure” to halt Israel’s widening offensive.
Israel has on several occasions conducted strikes on UNRWA buildings housing displaced people in Gaza, where fighting has raged for most of the past 18 months.

The Israeli military accuses Hamas of hiding in school buildings where thousands of Gazans have sought shelter – a charge denied by the Palestinian militant group.
Israel also carried out deadly air strikes in southern and central Gaza on Wednesday. The civil defence said dawn strikes killed at least 13 people in Khan Younis and two in Nuseirat refugee camp.
Late Wednesday, the military said it had intercepted “two projectiles that crossed into Israeli territory from northern Gaza”, after air raid sirens sounded in border communities.
Shortly after, military spokesman Avichay Adraee said in an online post that “terrorist organisations … launch their rockets from among civilians”, telling Palestinians in parts of northern Gaza to evacuate “for your safety” ahead of an attack.
Israel resumed intense bombing of Gaza on March 18 before launching a new ground offensive, ending a nearly two-month ceasefire.
An Israeli group representing the families of hostages still held in Gaza said they were “horrified” by Katz’s announcement of expanded military operations.
UN chief Antonio Guterres on Wednesday called for “a full, thorough and independent investigation” into the killing of 15 emergency responders in Gaza, whose bodies had been recovered days after a shooting last month in the southern city of Rafah.
At least 1,066 people have been killed in Gaza since Israel resumed military operations, the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory said.
That took the overall toll to at least 50,423 since the war began with Hamas’ October 2023 attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people, according to Israeli figures.


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Israel-Gaza war

Israel military ‘dissecting’ Gaza to force Hamas to free hostages

A devastated neighbourhood in the Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip. Photo: AFP

Smoke rises from buildings in Gaza after an air strike. Photo: Reuters

An Israeli drone flies over Gaza. Photo: Reuters

Israeli soldiers operating in southern Gaza. Photo: Israeli Army via Reuters

A destroyed UN clinic in the Jabalia refugee camp, northern Gaza. Photo: EPA-EFE

Israel to expand Gaza military operation to ‘crush’ Hamas

Fighters of the Islamic Jihad and Ezz al-Din Al-Qassam brigades, the military wing of Hamas, during the handover of three Israeli hostages in February. File photo: Abed Rahim Khatib/dpa


A boy stands on rubble after an Israeli strike on a house in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip. Photo: Reuters

An Israeli tank inside Gaza on March 25. Photo: Reuters

An Israeli military helicopter fires during operations on March 19. Photo: AFP

Palestinians protest against Hamas in rare public show of dissent in Gaza

Hundreds of Palestinians chanted anti-Hamas slogans at a protest in northern Gaza on Tuesday. Photo: AFP

A sign in Arabic reads: ‘The blood of our children is not cheap’. Photo: AFP

Netanyahu says strikes on Gaza that killed hundreds are ‘only the beginning’

A Palestinian man weeps next to a truck carrying the bodies of the victims of overnight Israeli strikes in northern Gaza on Tuesday. Photo: AFP

An Israeli tank near the border with Gaza. Photo: Reuters

A man who was injured in the strikes. Photo: AP

A Palestinian man holds the body of his 11 month-old nephew. Photo: AP

People search for survivors in the rubble of a building in Jabalia, in the northern Gaza Strip. Photo: AFP

Israel investigating UN worker’s death in Gaza, military denies striking compound

The impact of a projectile is visible on the wall of a
 UN guest house in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza. Photo: AP

A wounded UN worker. Photo: Reuters

An injured UN worker being brought to hospital. Photo: AP

News

World

Middle East

More than 1,000 people have been killed in Gaza since Israel resumed military operations last month, Palestinians say


More than 1,000 people have been killed in Gaza since Israel resumed military operations last month, Palestinians say.


Israel

War and conflict

Islamic militancy

Israel military ‘dissecting’ Gaza to force Hamas to free hostages

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}More than 1,000 people have been killed in Gaza since Israel resumed military operations last month, Palestinians say

More than 1,000 people have been killed in Gaza since Israel resumed military operations last month, Palestinians say