Smoke billows on the horizon east of the Bureij camp for Palestinian refugees in the central Gaza Strip following Israeli bombardment AFP
Netanyahu said Wednesday that Israel is establishing a new corridor across the Gaza Strip that would cut off the southern city of Rafah, which Israel has ordered evacuated, from the rest of the Palestinian territory, AP reported.
Netanyahu described the new axis as the Morag corridor, using the name of a colonial 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.
Israel has also reasserted control over the Netzarim corridor, also named for a former settlement, that cuts off the northern third of Gaza, including Gaza City, from the rest of the narrow Palestinian coastal strip. Both of the existing corridors run from the Israeli border to the Mediterranean Sea.
Israel said earlier Wednesday it would expand its military operations and seize "large areas" of the Gaza Strip, where rescuers said 34 Palestinians were killed in Israeli strikes, including on a UN building.
Defence Minister Israel Katz said Israel would bolster its military presence in the Palestinian territory, according to AFP.
The operation would "seize large areas that will be incorporated into Israeli security zones," he said in a statement, without specifying how much territory.
Israel targets children
Gaza's civil defence agency said at least 19 people were killed, including nine children, when an Israeli strike "targeted an UNRWA (UN agency for Palestinian refugees) building housing a medical clinic in Jabalia refugee camp."
The building, previously a clinic, had been converted into a shelter for displaced people, with more than 700 residing there, according to Juliette Touma, a spokesperson for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, the main aid provider in Gaza.
She said UN staff warned people about the dangers of remaining there after Wednesday's strike but that many chose to stay, “simply because they have absolutely nowhere else to go,” AP added.
Israeli airstrikes on the southern city of Khan Younis have killed 17 people, hospital officials say.
The bodies of 12 people killed in an overnight airstrike were brought to Nasser Hospital, officials said Wednesday, and the victims included five women, one of them pregnant, and two children.
Three men from the same family were killed, as were the owners of the house that was bombed, officials said.
Israel has killed at least 1,066 people in the Palestinian territory since it resumed its genocidal war on 18 March, bringing the overall death toll to 50,423, mostly children and women, since the war began in 2023.
UN says most of Gaza is a ‘no-go’ zone
More than 60 percent of Gaza is now considered a “no-go” zone because of Israeli evacuation orders, according to Olga Cherevko, a spokesperson for the UN humanitarian aid office.
Hundreds of thousands people are living in squalid tent camps along the coast or in the ruins of their destroyed homes.
The UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said the food situation remains “very critical” since Israel closed all crossings into Gaza a month ago.
He said the UN is “at the tail end of our supplies,” forcing the UN World Food Program to close all 25 of its bakeries in Gaza because of a lack of flour and cooking fuel.
“WFP doesn’t close its bakeries for fun,” Dujarric said.
For four weeks, Israel has shut off all sources of food, fuel, medicine and other supplies for the Gaza Strip’s population of more than 2 million Palestinians. It’s the longest blockade yet of Israel’s 18-month-old war on Gaza, with no sign of it ending. Many are going hungry during the normally festive Eid al-Fitr.
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