Israel used the roughly six-kilometre Netzarim Corridor as a military zone during the war. It ran from the Israeli border to the coast just south of Gaza City, severing the territory’s largest metropolitan area and the rest of the north from the south.
Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who had fled northern Gaza for the south were prevented from returning throughout the war, until Israel withdrew from Netzarim in January. Many of them have since returned.
In late January, thousands of displaced Palestinians walk towards their homes in northern Gaza via the Netzarim Corridor.Credit: Bloomberg
But Katz, the defence minister, said the military would soon order Palestinians to evacuate from combat zones.
“The air force attack against Hamas terrorists was just the first step. The rest will be much more difficult and you will pay the full price,” he said in a video statement addressing the population of Gaza.
Israel continued with airstrikes in Gaza on Wednesday, though at a lower intensity than Tuesday, saying it hit dozens of militants and militant sites, including the command centre of a Hamas battalion.
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It denied Palestinian claims that Israel hit the UN guesthouse.
Jorge Moreira da Silva, head of the UN Office for Project Services, declined to say who carried out the strike in the central city of Deir al-Balah. He said the explosive ordnance was “dropped or fired” and the blast was not accidental or related to demining activity.
He did not provide the nationalities of the dead worker or wounded employees. The UN body carries out infrastructure and development projects around the world.
Moreira da Silva said strikes had hit near the compound on Monday, striking it directly on Tuesday and again on Wednesday.
He said the agency had contacted the Israeli military after the first strike. “Israel knew this was a UN premise, that people were living, staying and working there,” he said.
Israeli tanks near the Gaza border in southern Israel on Wednesday.Credit: AP/Ariel Schalit
Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani, a military spokesperson, said the explosion was not caused by Israeli fire. “There were no forces around that building, no aerial attacks on that area,” he said.
After the strike on Wednesday, the wounded were rushed to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah. One man was carried inside on a blanket held up by medical workers. Another lay on a hospital bed, his knee bandaged. A blue protective vest emblazoned with “UN” rested on a nearby bed.
The Gaza Health Ministry said at least 436 people, including 183 children and 94 women, have been killed since Israel launched the strikes early on Tuesday. It said another 678 people have been wounded.
The military says it only strikes militants and blames civilian deaths on Hamas because it operates in densely populated areas. Gaza’s Health Ministry records do not distinguish between civilians and combatants.
Smoke rises following an Israeli bombardment in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday.Credit: AP
The war has killed nearly 49,000 Palestinians, according to local health officials, and displaced 90 per cent of Gaza’s population. The health ministry doesn’t differentiate between civilians and militants but says more than half of the dead have been women and children.
The war erupted when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel on October 7, 2023, killing some 1200 people, mostly civilians, and taking 251 hostages. Most have been released in ceasefires or other deals; 59 hostages remain, and more than half are believed to be dead.
Israel and Hamas were set to negotiate an extension of the first phase of the ceasefire agreement, which lasted six weeks.
But those negotiations never got off the ground. Hamas has demanded that Israel stick to the terms of the initial ceasefire deal, including a full withdrawal from Gaza and an end to the war. Israel, which has vowed to defeat Hamas, has put forward a new proposal that would extend the truce and free more hostages held by Hamas, without a commitment to end the war.
The breakdown of the ceasefire was met with anger in Israel, where many support the plight of the hostage families to free their loved ones.
Israel’s return to a military campaign came as Netanyahu faces mounting domestic pressure, with mass protests taking place over his handling of the hostage crisis and his plan to fire the head of Israel’s internal security agency.
