Israeli strikes across the Gaza Strip overnight have killed at least 55 people, hospital officials said.
Thursday's strikes came a day after senior government officials said Israel would seize large swathes of Gaza and create a new security corridor through the Palestinian territory.
Israel has vowed to escalate its nearly 18-month war with Hamas until the militant group returns dozens of remaining hostages, disarms and leaves the area.
Israel suspended all imports of food, fuel and humanitarian aid for a month, leaving civilians facing severe food shortages due to reduced supplies.
Officials in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, said the bodies of 14 people had been taken to Nasser Hospital, nine of them members of the same family.
Among the dead were five children and four women.
The bodies of 19 other people, including five children aged one to seven and a pregnant woman, were taken to the European Hospital near Khan Younis, hospital officials said.
In Gaza City, 21 bodies were brought to Ahli Hospital, including those of seven children.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced on Wednesday that Israel was creating a new security corridor through the Gaza Strip to put pressure on Hamas, hinting that it would cut off the southern city of Rafah, which Israel has ordered evacuated, from the rest of the Palestinian territory.
Mr Netanyahu called the new axis the Morag Corridor, using the name of a Jewish settlement that once lay between Rafah and Khan Yunis, suggesting that 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 and under Israeli control since May last year.
Israel has regained control of the Netzarim corridor, also named after the former settlement, which cuts off the northern third of Gaza, including Gaza City, from the rest of the narrow coastal strip.
Both existing corridors run from the border with Israel to the Mediterranean Sea.
“We are cutting the strip and gradually increasing the pressure so that they give us our hostages,” Mr. Netanyahu said.
The Western-backed Palestinian Authority, led by opponents of Hamas, expressed its “total rejection” of the planned corridor.
The statement also called on Hamas to relinquish power in the Gaza Strip, where the militant group has faced sporadic protests in recent days.
Mr Netanyahu's statement came after Defence Minister Israel Katz said Israel would seize large areas of Gaza and add them to its so-called security zones, apparently referring to the existing buffer zone around the perimeter of Gaza.
He called on Gazans to “expel Hamas and return all hostages,” saying “this is the only way to end the war.”
Hamas has said it will release the remaining 59 hostages (24 of whom are believed to be alive) only in exchange for the release of more Palestinian prisoners, a lasting ceasefire and an Israeli withdrawal.
The group rejected demands to lay down their arms or leave the area.
Mr Netanyahu said on Sunday that Israel planned to maintain overall security control in Gaza after the war and implement US President Donald Trump's proposal to move most of the population elsewhere through what the Israeli leader called “voluntary emigration”.
Palestinians have rejected the plan as an expulsion from their homeland after Israel's offensive left much of it uninhabitable, and human rights experts say it would likely violate international law.
The war began when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel on October 7, 2023, killing about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking 251 hostages, most of whom were later released under ceasefires and other agreements.
Israel rescued eight hostages alive and found dozens of bodies.
Gaza's Health Ministry says more than 50,000 Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli offensive, but it has not specified whether those killed were civilians or combatants.
Israel says it has killed about 20,000 militants, without providing evidence.
The war left large areas of Gaza in ruins, and at the height of the war, about 90% of the population was forced to flee their homes.
– Israeli strikes on Syria
On Thursday, Syrian state media reported that Israeli strikes had killed at least nine people in southwest Syria.
The SANA news agency said all nine people were civilians, without giving details.
The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said they were local fighters from Daraa province, frustrated by Israeli military incursions and attacks in recent months.
Israel has seized parts of southwestern Syria and created a buffer zone there that it says is designed to keep Israel safe from armed groups.
However, critics say the military operation has created tensions in Syria and is hindering long-term stability and reconstruction in the war-torn country.
Israel also struck five cities in Syria on Wednesday evening, including more than a dozen strikes near the strategic airbase in the city of Hama.
Sourse: breakingnews.ie
