The Israeli army said on Wednesday that its forces had resumed ground operations in the central and southern Gaza band, while a second day of air strikes killed at least 20 Palestinians, according to local health workers.
The operations renewed on the ground work one day after more than 400 Palestinians were killed in air strikes in one of the deadliest episodes since the start of the conflict, breaking a cease-fire which has been going well since January.
The Israeli army said that its operations had extended Israel control over the netzarim corridor, which bisette Gaza, and was a “targeted” maneuver aimed at creating a partial buffer zone between the north and the south of the enclave.
The United Nations said that an Israeli air strike killed foreign staff and injured five workers on the site of a UN headquarters in the center of Gaza City on Wednesday. But Israel denied this, saying that he had struck a Hamas site, where he had detected preparations to shoot Israeli territory.
Jorge Moreira Da Silva, Executive Director of the United Nations Bureau for Project Services, said: “Israel knew that it was a UN local, that people lived, stayed there and worked there, it is a complex. It is a very well -known place.”
Israel, who promised to eradicate Hamas, said his last attack was “just the start”.
Israel and Hamas accuse each other of vioder the truce, which had offered a respite for 2.3 million residents of Gaza after 17 months of war which reduced the enclave in rubble and forced most of its population to evacuate several times.
The Israeli campaign killed more than 49,000 people in Gaza, according to Palestinian health authorities, and caused a humanitarian crisis with shortages of food, fuel and water.
Israel accused Hamas of using Palestinian civilians as human shields. Hamas denies this and accuses Israel of blind attacks.
The war – The most devastating episode in decades of Israeli -Palestinian conflict – was launched by an attack led by Hamas against southern Israel on October 7, 2023, in which armed men killed some 1,200 people and took around 250 hostages, according to Israeli decks.
The decision of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to resume bombings sparked demonstrations in Israel while 59 hostages are still detained in Gaza, of which 24 which would still be alive.
A coalition of hostage families and demonstrators against Netanyahu’s measures against the judiciary and other parties of the security establishment has gathered and accuses the Prime Minister of using war for political purposes.
Earlier Wednesday, the Israeli army dropped leaflets in the Northern Gaza Strip in the South, again ordering residents to evacuate their houses.
Defense Minister Israel Katz has published a video declaration warning the residents of Gaza that the evacuation of combat zones would begin shortly.
‘Force that you have not yet seen’
He said that the air strikes were “only the first step” and that if the hostages were not released “, Israel will act with force that you have not yet seen.”
Renewed violence was condemned by Western countries, notably France and Germany, as well as Qatar and Egypt which acted as mediators in the cease-fire negotiations.
The head of the European Union foreign policy Kaja Kallas said on Wednesday that she told the Israeli Foreign Affairs Minister Gideon Saar that the situation in Gaza was “unacceptable”.
The king of Jordan Abdullah asked that the ceasefire be restored and that the aid flows resume.
“The resumption of attacks by Israel against Gaza is an extremely dangerous step which adds an additional devastation to an already disastrous humanitarian situation,” he said during a visit to Paris for interviews with French President Emmanuel Macron.
However, Dorothy Shea, US US ambassador to the United Nations, said on Tuesday that the blame for the resumption of hostilities “resides only with Hamas”.
During the violence on Wednesday, three people were killed in an Israeli air strike in a house in Gaza City, while another air strike left two men who died and injured six others in the city of Beit Hanoun in the north, the health officials of Gaza said.
Palestinian doctors have said that Israeli tanks bombed on the road to Salahdeen had killed a Palestinian and injured others, while an Israeli air strike killed three people in a house in Beit Lahiya City north of the enclave.
