JERUSALEM/CAIRO--Israel announced a major expansion of military operations in Gaza on Wednesday, 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 3-4 kilometres 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.
Separately, the Israeli military said troops had completed the encirclement of the Tel al-Sultan area near Rafah and killed dozens of militants. It had also found two rockets as well as a launcher aimed at Israeli territory.
But there was no sign of an end to the operation and the head of the Israeli military, Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir, said it would continue at a deliberate and determined pace."The only thing that can halt our further advance is the release of our hostages," he said in a statement.
Earlier on Wednesday, Defence Minister Israel Katz announced that troops would be widening their operation in Gaza to clear out militants 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% of Gaza is under active forced displacement orders or falling within the so-called 'buffer zone'," said Jonathan Whittall, the top U.N. 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 on Wednesday, with 19 people including children killed in a strike at a U.N. 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, and that the military had used surveillance to mitigate the risk to civilians. Hamas denied using the building and called the Israeli accusation that it did so a "blatant fabrication".
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. "From the moment the strike occurred we have not been able to sit or sleep," she said, describing how rescue workers were unable to separate the remains of those killed.
Katz's statement did not make clear how much land Israel intended to seize or whether the move represented a permanent annexation of territory, which would heighten pressure on a population already living in one of the most crowded areas in the world.But the push reinforced Palestinian fears of a permanent displacement and the imposition of full-scale Israeli military control over the coastal enclave.
