Israel resumed intensive bombing of Gaza on Tuesday, after blocking indirect negotiations on next steps in the truce, whose first stage expired this month.
Before renewing its assault, Israel attempted to extend the first phase of the agreement, effectively stalling talks on the second phase, which would involve an Israeli withdrawal and a permanent end to the war on Gaza.
Despite the agreement being signed by Tel Aviv, Israel has repeatedly blocked progress toward this next phase, refusing to commit to its implementation. Hamas has firmly rejected this, insisting that the original terms — a phased exchange of captives and prisoners, followed by negotiations for a lasting truce — must be upheld.
Despite the renewed assault, a flagrant violation of the ceasefire, Hamas has said it remains open to talks but insists no new agreements are necessary. “We have no conditions, but we demand that the occupation be compelled to immediately halt its aggression and war of extermination, and begin the second phase of negotiations,” Hamas official Taher al-Nunu told AFP on Thursday.
A Palestinian source close to the ceasefire talks told AFP late Friday that Hamas had received a proposal from mediators Egypt and Qatar for re-establishing a truce and exchanging captives for Palestinian prisoners "according to a timeline to be agreed upon".
The source said the proposal "includes the entry of humanitarian aid" into Gaza, which has been blocked by Israel since March 2.
Meanwhile, Gaza's civil defence agency said Israeli strikes killed 11 people on Friday -- three in pre-dawn strikes and eight more during the daytime.
On Thursday, Khalil al-Daqran, Gaza's Health Ministry spokesperson, said at least 710 Palestinians had been killed and more than 900 injured in Gaza since Israel resumed its war, adding that 70 percent of the casualties were women and children.
In a statement Friday, Katz said: "I ordered (the army) to seize more territory in Gaza... which will be annexed by Israel", claiming the move was spurred by Hamas's refusal to release Israeli captives despite Israel's repeated violations of the ceasefire agreement.
Katz also threatened "to expand buffer zones around Gaza... by implementing a permanent Israeli occupation of the area".
The military ordered residents of the Al-Salatin, Al-Karama and Al-Awda areas of southern Gaza to evacuate their homes Friday ahead of a threatened strike.
AFP images from northern Gaza showed donkey carts piled high with belongings as residents fled their homes along rubble-strewn roads.
International condemnation
Israel's resumption of its deadly war on Gaza, coordinated with US President Donald Trump's administration, drew widespread condemnation.
The foreign ministers of Germany, France and Britain called for an immediate return to a Gaza ceasefire in a joint statement late Friday, calling the new strikes "a dramatic step backward".
Turkey's foreign ministry condemned what it called a "deliberate" attack by Israel on a Turkish-built hospital in Gaza.
In a statement, the health ministry condemned "the heinous crime committed by the occupation (Israel) in bombing the Turkish-Palestinian Friendship Hospital", calling it "the only hospital designated for the treatment of cancer patients in the Gaza Strip".
The ministry said Israeli forces had used the hospital as "a base for its forces throughout the period of its occupation of the so-called Netzarim axis".
Meanwhile, thousands of protesters have rallied in Jerusalem in recent days, accusing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of resuming the Israeli assault on Gaza without regard for the safety of the captives.
Hamas has repeatedly warned that Israel's indiscriminate bombing of the Gaza Strip risks killing Palestinian civilians and Israeli captives alike.
Projectiles from Gaza, Yemen
Israel's occupation army said late Friday that it had intercepted a missile launched from Yemen, after air raid sirens sounded in Jerusalem and parts of central Israel.
It is the fourth missile launched from Yemen towards Israel since Tuesday, after Houthi rebels threatened to escalate attacks in support of Palestinians following Israel's renewed war on Gaza.
In a statement early Saturday, the Yemeni group said it had "targeted Ben Gurion airport" near Tel Aviv with a ballistic missile.
Israeli airspace would remain unsafe "until the aggression against Gaza stops", the group said in the statement.
Earlier on Friday, Israel's army said it intercepted two projectiles fired from northern Gaza, which Hamas's armed wing said was in response to "massacres against civilians".
Katz said Israel would "intensify the fight with aerial, naval and ground shelling as well as by expanding the ground operation... using all military and civilian pressure points".
He said these included implementing Trump's colonial proposal for the United States to take over Gaza as a Mediterranean resort after ethnically cleansing its Palestinian inhabitants to other Arab countries, a plan widely condemned by the Arab countries and the international community.
Egypt has since proposed a Gaza reconstruction plan in response to Trump's proposal. The five-year plan aims to rebuild the Gaza Strip without displacing its Palestinian population. It has already been ratified by the Arab League and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation and has received broad global support.
*This story was edited by Ahram Online.
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