Smoke billows on the web site of an Israeli strike on a residential space in Gaza Metropolis’s Shujaiyya neighborhood, on April 9, 2025. | Picture by Omar AL-QATTAA / AFP
GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories — Israel mentioned Wednesday its troops are seizing “giant areas” in Gaza and making the Palestinian territory “smaller and extra remoted”, as an air strike on a residential block killed a minimum of 23 individuals.
Defence Minister Israel Katz’s feedback come weeks right into a renewed offensive by the army on the war-battered territory, which has displaced lots of of 1000’s, whereas an support blockade has revived the spectre of famine for its 2.4 million individuals.
“Giant areas are being seized and added to Israel’s safety zones, leaving Gaza smaller and extra remoted,” Katz mentioned throughout a go to to the newly introduced Morag Hall between the southern cities of Rafah and Khan Yunis.
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Katz emphasised that Israel would maintain growing stress on Gaza “till the hostages are freed and Hamas is defeated”.
Because the obtainable house for Gazans recedes to increasing buffer zones, Katz mentioned Israel was encouraging plans for “voluntary emigration… in accordance with the imaginative and prescient of the US president, which we’re working to implement”.
US President Donald Trump had earlier this 12 months proposed a plan to develop Gaza right into a “Riviera of the Center East” whereas displacing its inhabitants elsewhere.
The Israeli army in the meantime continued to pound the territory on Wednesday.
Gaza’s civil defence company mentioned an air strike on a residential constructing in Gaza Metropolis killed a minimum of 23 individuals, most of them kids or girls, whereas the army mentioned it focused a “senior Hamas” militant.
The strike occurred within the Shujaiya neighbourhood of Gaza Metropolis, the company’s spokesman Mahmud Bassal informed AFP.
“The dying toll from the Shujaiya bloodbath has risen to 23 martyrs, together with eight kids and eight girls,” he mentioned, including that greater than 60 individuals have been wounded.
“There are nonetheless individuals trapped below the rubble.”
‘Torn to items’
Ayub Salim, a 26-year-old Shujaiya resident, informed AFP he witnessed the strike on the four-storey block.
He mentioned the realm was hit with “a number of missiles” and was “overcrowded with tents, displaced individuals and houses”.
“Shrapnel flew in all instructions,” he mentioned, talking of “a terrifying and indescribable scene”.
“Mud and big destruction stuffed the whole place, we couldn’t see something, simply the screams and panic of the individuals”.
Salim mentioned the lifeless have been “torn to items”.
“Even now, emergency crews are nonetheless transporting the lifeless and the injured. It’s actually a horrific bloodbath,” he mentioned.
A crew from the Gaza civil defence company rushed to the scene, solely to search out a number of individuals trapped below the rubble, a rescuer mentioned.
“This home was dwelling to many individuals who believed they have been secure. It was blown up over their heads,” rescuer Ibrahim Abu al-Rish informed AFP whereas males labored arduous to filter out rubble behind him.
He added that the strike hit whereas many kids have been enjoying inside.
“We pulled out the stays of girls and kids. There are nonetheless individuals buried below the rubble,” he mentioned.
First responders and neighbours labored to interrupt by way of the concrete ground of a complete storey that collapsed within the strike and trapped residents, AFP footage confirmed.
Taking turns swinging a sledgehammer by way of the thick, arduous floor, they ultimately broke a gap by way of which the our bodies of youngsters have been extracted and brought away wrapped in dusty blankets.
‘Heinous bloodbath’
When requested by AFP concerning the strike, the Israeli army mentioned it “struck a senior Hamas terrorist who was answerable for planning and executing terrorist assaults” from the realm.
It didn’t give the goal’s title.
Hamas condemned the strike as one of many “most heinous acts of genocide.”
The Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority’s international ministry additionally condemned the strike as a “heinous bloodbath”.
“The ministry considers it an official Israeli try to systematically kill our individuals en masse and destroy the very foundations of their existence within the Gaza Strip, thus forcing them to to migrate,” it mentioned in a press release.
Israel resumed intense strikes on the Gaza Strip on March 18, ending a two-month ceasefire with Hamas. Efforts to revive the truce have to date failed.
The well being ministry within the Hamas-run territory mentioned on Wednesday that a minimum of 1,482 Palestinians have been killed within the renewed Israeli operations, taking the general dying toll because the begin of the conflict to 50,846.
Hamas’s October 2023 assault that triggered the conflict resulted within the deaths of 1,218 individuals on the Israeli aspect, principally civilians, in line with an AFP tally based mostly on Israeli official figures.
Hossam Badran, a member of Hamas’s political bureau, informed AFP on Tuesday that it was “vital to achieve a ceasefire” in Gaza.
Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu mentioned on Monday that new negotiations have been within the works aimed toward getting extra hostages launched from Gaza.
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