Israel army announces new ground offensive east of Gaza City

GAZA CITY

Israeli forces on Friday advanced into a northern Gaza area to extend what they describe as a security zone along the enclave's edge, days after the government revealed plans to take control of extensive areas through an operation in the south.

The military stated that soldiers conducting the operation in Shejaia, a suburb east of Gaza City in the north, were allowing civilians to leave through designated routes.

Israel issued sweeping evacuation orders for parts of northern Gaza ahead of announced ground operations. The U.N. humanitarian office said around 280,000 Palestinians have been displaced since Israel ended the ceasefire with Hamas last month.

Israel has now restricted Palestinians’ access to roughly two-thirds of Gaza, either by declaring large areas as no-go zones or issuing forced displacement orders, according to a statement by the U.N. on April 3.

Among the restricted areas is a large swath of southern Rafah, where Israel’s military issued a new displacement order on March 31, declaring it was returning to “fight with great force”.

Israeli airstrikes, meanwhile, killed at least 100 Palestinians across the Gaza Strip, including 27 or more sheltering at a school.

The bodies of 14 children and five women were recovered from the school in the Tuffah neighborhood of Gaza City and the death toll could rise because some of the 70 wounded sustained critical injuries, said Health Ministry spokesman Zaher al-Wahidi.

Six people were still unaccounted for in the strike, with one of the missing being a pregnant woman who was expecting twins.

With the heavy civilian deatol continine to rise concerns, the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics said that 39,384 children in Gaza have lost one or both parents after 534 days of Israel’s assault.

The bureau said among them are about 17,000 children who have been deprived of both parents since October 2023.

“The Gaza Strip is suffering from the largest orphan crisis in modern history,” the office said.

The expanded ground offensive and fresh evacuation orders came a day after government said that Israel would seize large parts of the Palestinian territory and establish a new security corridor across it.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on April 2 that Israel is establishing a new security corridor across the Gaza Strip to pressure Hamas, suggesting it would cut off the southern city of Rafah from the rest of the Palestinian territory.

The announcement came after Netanyahu's defense minister said Israel would seize large areas of Gaza and add them to its so-called security zones.

Netanyahu described the new axis as the Morag corridor, using the name of a Jewish settlement that once stood between Rafah and Khan Younis, suggesting it would run between the two southern cities.

He said it would be "a second Philadelphi corridor " referring to the Gaza side of the border with Egypt further south, which has been under Israeli control since last May.

Meanwhile, U.S. President Donald Trump said that Netanyahu may visit him as early as next week. But a U.S. official subsequently clarified to Axios that the visit will not likely take place for another several weeks.

“We're going to try and solve the Gaza problem. It's been a problem for many years, for many, many decades. It's been a big problem,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One.