CNN
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Israeli forces pledged Thursday to intensify operations across Gaza, killing more than 100 people and continuing to bombard the enclave as US President Donald Trump proposed to establish a “free zone” in the enclave.
According to Gaza Civil Defense, many of the victims were in Jabaria in northern Gaza and in Karn Yunis in the south.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has pledged to eradicate Hamas with a strategy to retain more territory in Gaza in Hamas and push the entire civilians into small regions south.
“There’s no in or out,” Netanyahu said earlier this month. “We will call the reserves coming and hold the territory. We will not be leaving the area and then leaving. We will just carry out the subsequent raid.”
The strengthened Israeli attack comes in what appears to be an increasing number of differences between the US and Israeli governments. President Donald Trump said last week that he ended Gaza’s “brutal war” and skipped Israel on his Middle East tour. He also bypassed Israel twice this month with bilateral deals, reaching with regional extremist groups. Hamas released an Israeli-American hostage last week, and the Houtis agreed to stop firing on American ships in the Red Sea, pledging to continue the fight against Israel.
On Wednesday, Trump denied Israel was on the sidelines. “This is good for Israel,” he said.
But on Thursday he said he wanted the US to “take” Gaza and turn it into a “free zone.”
“I have the concept of Gaza. I think it’s very good. Let’s make it a free zone, let the US participate, just a free zone,” Trump said in Qatar.
The latest Israeli business comes as the Palestinian Ministry of Health announced that the number of deaths in Israeli attacks in Gaza since October 2023 has exceeded 53,000.
Civil Defense spokesman Mahmoud Basketball said “we are reporting more than 100 martyrs in the Gaza Strip region, from the Gaza Strip region (Thursday) to northern Gaza.”
Basil said six families, including four children, were killed in Jabaria. According to the hospital, his father was a nurse at Kamal Adwan Hospital.
He said the Israeli artillery fire killed 13 people at the Jabaria Clinic, where many Gazaans gathered. Al Awda Hospital said it had received many injuries after a strike at the clinic.
CNN has called on the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) to comment on the reported strike.
At Khan Younis, 11 members of one family were killed in an airstrike above the house, according to CNN Stringer, who visited the scene. Ahmad al-Safi, a teenage boy who was kicked out of northern Gaza, told CNN:
The Palestinian Ministry of Health reported Thursday that 82 bodies and 152 injuries have been received at Gaza Hospital in the last 24 hours. He said the number of killed as a result of Israeli military operations since October 2023 has risen to 53,010. The ministry does not distinguish between civilians and extremists. In January, the IDF said it had killed 20,000 Hamas operatives since October 7th.
The IDF continues to issue evacuation orders for various parts of Gaza. The latest was directed at people in the Rimal district on the central Gaza coastline on Wednesday. An Arabic spokesman for the IDF said in X that it was due to “Hamas terrorist activities in the region” and added that “we will bomb the region and will continue to target it.”
United Nations agencies have issued warnings about the worsening situation for civilians.
The Humanitarian Bureau’s Coordination Bureau, posted Thursday that “lockdowns, evacuation orders, and continuous artillery fire, including tents, hospitals and schools, continue to promote massive casualties, evacuation and deprivation.”
A UN survey this week stated that “the inability of humanitarian agencies to access a population that caters to their disastrous needs, the expected escalation of hostilities and the continued massive displacement of people will not be possible.”
“We’re destroying more and more homes.”
The Israeli government is not swayed by the escalating international criticism of the lockdown of aid reaching Gaza in its third month.
Netanyahu said earlier this week: “We are destroying more and more homes. They are not coming back anywhere. The only inevitable outcome is the desire for Gaza to move outside the Gaza Strip,” a goal Trump supported shortly after taking office.
Seeing the remaining hostages have been released, it appears that negotiations about a fresh ceasefire are stagnant. Qatar’s prime minister told CNN on Wednesday he did not expect to see any immediate progress in negotiations mediated by his country, criticizing Israel for sending “bad signals” by continuing to bomb the enclave while sending delegations for talks in Doha.
Mohammed Bin Abdulrahman Bin Jassim Al Thani told CNN’s Becky Anderson that he saw the release of Israeli hostage Edan Alexander this week as a “breakthrough that will help regain orbital consultations.”
However, he added: “Unfortunately, Israel’s response to this was while sending out a (bombing) delegation the following day,” he accused Israel of “escalating its essentially not interested in negotiations.”
Israeli officials told CNN on Thursday that there was no progress in consultations in Doha, but that was still ongoing.
Israel wants to extend the first phase of the transaction in order to continue the exchange of lively and dead hostages in return for further release of Palestinian prisoners and aid to Gaza, but there is no commitment to end the war forever.
Hamas claimed Thursday that the mediator was working on “manipulation to bring negotiations back on track,” but Israel was carrying out mass bombings “in a desperate attempt to impose conditions under the fire.”
Hamas also said that “with the knowledge of the American side and the mediators, humanitarian aid soon began entering the Gaza Strip and began seeking a permanent ceasefire,” after Alexander’s release, “we reached with the knowledge of the mediators.”
“The failure to achieve these steps, especially the introduction of humanitarian assistance to our people, will cast a negative shadow on efforts to complete negotiations regarding the prisoner exchange process,” he added.
