The Israeli military intensified operations across Gaza Thursday, killing more than 100 people, and pledged to continue bombings as US President Donald Trump suggested establishing a “freedom zone” in the enclave.
Many of the casualties were in Jabalya in northern Gaza and in Khan Younis in the south, according to Gaza Civil Defense.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has pledged to eradicate Hamas with a strategy that would see the military hold more territory in Gaza and push the entire civilian population into a smaller area in the south.
“There will be no in-and-out,” Netanyahu said earlier this month. “We’ll call up reserves to come, hold territory – we’re not going to enter and then exit the area, only to carry out raids afterward.”
The intensified Israeli attacks come amid what appears to be growing differences between the US and Israeli governments. President Donald Trump said last week that he wants an end to the “brutal war” in Gaza and has skipped Israel in his Middle East tour. He also bypassed Israel twice this month in bilateral deals reached with regional militant groups. Hamas released an Israeli-American hostage last week, and the Houthis agreed to stop firing at American ships in the Red Sea while pledging to continue fighting Israel.
On Wednesday, Trump denied that Israel was sidelined. “This is good for Israel,” he said.
But on Thursday, he said he wanted the US to “take” Gaza and turn it into a “freedom zone.”
“I have concepts for Gaza that I think are very good, make it a freedom zone, let the United States get involved and make it just a freedom zone,” Trump said in Qatar.
The latest Israeli operations came as the Palestinian Ministry of Health announced that the number killed by the Israeli offensive in Gaza since October 2023 now exceeds 53,000.
Mahmoud Basal, a Civil Defense spokesman, said: “We are currently reporting more than 100 martyrs in areas of the Gaza Strip (on Thursday), from central Khan Younis to northern Gaza.”
Basal said a family of six, including four children, had been killed in Jabalya. The father was a nurse at Kamal Adwan hospital, according to the hospital.
He said that an Israeli bombardment had also killed 13 people at a Jabalya clinic where a large number of Gazans had gathered. Al Awda hospital said it had received many wounded people after the strike on the clinic.
CNN has asked the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) for comment on the reported strike.
‘I thought I was a martyr’
In Khan Younis, 11 members of one family were killed in an airstrike on a house, according to a CNN stringer who visited the scene. A teenage boy, Ahmad Al-Safi, who had been displaced from northern Gaza, told CNN: “I was sleeping and I thought the house fell on us. I went into a state of shock… I thought I was a martyr.”
The Palestinian Ministry of Health reported Thursday that 82 bodies had been received at Gaza hospitals in the past 24 hours, as well as 152 injured people. It said the number killed as a result of Israeli military operations since October 2023 had risen to 53,010. The ministry does not differentiate between civilians and militants. In January, the IDF said it had killed 20,000 Hamas operatives since October 7.
The IDF continues to issue evacuation orders for different parts of Gaza. The latest was directed at people in the Rimal neighborhood on the coastline in central Gaza on Wednesday. The IDF’s Arabic language spokesman said on X the order was due to “Hamas’s terrorist activities in the area,” adding that it also “bombed the area and will continue to target it today and in the coming days.”
UN agencies are expressing alarm at the worsening situation for civilians.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs posted on X Thursday that the “blockade, displacement orders, and ongoing bombardments – including on tents, hospitals and schools – continue to drive mass casualties, displacement and deprivation.”
It cited a UN study this week warning that with “the persistent inability of humanitarian agencies to access populations in dire need, an anticipated escalation in hostilities, and the continued mass displacement of people, the risk of famine in the Gaza Strip is not just possible – it is increasingly likely.”
‘We are destroying more and more homes’
The Israeli government has not been swayed by a growing tide of international criticism over the blockade on aid reaching Gaza, now in its third month.
Netanyahu said earlier this week: “We are destroying more and more homes, they have nowhere to return to. The only inevitable outcome will be the desire of Gazans to emigrate outside of the Gaza Strip,” a goal that Trump had supported soon after coming into office.
Negotiations on a fresh ceasefire that would see the remaining hostages released appear to have stalled. The Qatari prime minister told CNN Wednesday he does not expect to see progress soon in the negotiations his country is mediating, criticizing Israel for sending a “bad signal” by continuing to bomb the enclave while dispatching a delegation to talks in Doha.
Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani told CNN’s Becky Anderson that he had seen the release of Israeli-American hostage Edan Alexander this week as a “breakthrough that will help bring back the talks on track.”
But he added: “Unfortunately Israel’s reaction to this was (bombing) the next day, while sending the delegation.” He accused Israel of “basically sending the signal that (they) are not interested in negotiations.”
An Israeli official told CNN Thursday there had been no progress in the talks in Doha, which were still ongoing.
Israel wants to extend the first phase of the deal to continue the exchange of hostages, alive and deceased, in return for further releases of Palestinian prisoners and the flow of aid into Gaza – but without any commitment to permanently ending the war.
Hamas claimed Thursday that while mediators were working to “steer negotiations back on track,” Israel was carrying out mass bombardment “in a desperate attempt to impose terms under fire.”
Hamas also said that it expected, “according to the understandings reached with the American side, and with the knowledge of the mediators, that humanitarian aid will begin to enter the Gaza Strip immediately, [and] calling for a permanent ceasefire,” after its release of Alexander.
It added that “the failure to achieve these steps, especially the introduction of humanitarian assistance to our people, will cast a negative shadow over any efforts to complete the negotiations on the prisoner exchange process.”
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