The immediate goal is to retake the Netzarim Corridor, which bisects the war-torn territory.
Israel is launching a new ground operation into Gaza and aims to seize a corridor that runs through the middle of the territory.
Israeli defense leaders announced on March 19 that they were pursuing a mission to retake the Netzarim Corridor, which stretches just south of Gaza City and bisects the strip into northern and southern regions.
Defense Minister Israel Katz vowed to unleash the operation “with an intensity that you have not seen” and warned Palestinians in the region that the army soon would order evacuations from combat zones again.
Israeli forces occupied the Netzarim Corridor from 2023 to 2025 but evacuated it as part of a cease-fire deal brokered in January with the Hamas terrorist group, which governs Gaza.
Jerusalem has since pulled out of that agreement, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying that Israel could not accept Hamas’s refusal to release additional hostages taken during the terror attacks of Oct. 7, 2023.
Hamas spent several weeks calling for talks on the cease-fire agreement’s second phase, which includes the release of the remaining living hostages in exchange for more Palestinian prisoners, a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, and a lasting cease-fire.
Under the first phase, which ran from Jan. 19 to March 1, Hamas released 25 Israeli hostages and the bodies of eight others in return for nearly 1,800 Palestinian prisoners, including senior militants serving life sentences for deadly attacks.
Hamas still holds 59 hostages in Gaza, of which 24 are believed to be alive.
Although each side has accused the other of violating the cease-fire, Israeli leadership made it moot by reinitiating airstrikes throughout Gaza earlier this week.
Israel’s defense ministry said that it would use the corridor to create a partial buffer zone between the north and the south of Gaza, but Israel’s long-term objective remains unclear. No reports of Hamas rocket fire or other attacks against Israel have been reported since the new offensive began.
The Hamas-led Gaza Health Ministry said that the latest Israeli strikes have killed around 436 people, most of whom it claims were women and children.
The Israel Defense Forces maintain that only Hamas militants have been targeted and that Hamas members are to blame for hiding in groups of civilians. Gaza’s Health Ministry casualty records do not distinguish between civilians and combatants.
