Israel says it has launched a “limited ground operation” to retake part of a key corridor in Gaza.
The move appeared to deepen a renewed Israeli offensive that shattered a ceasefire with Hamas that had begun in January.
As part of the ceasefire, Israel had withdrawn from the Netzarim corridor, which bisected northern Gaza from the south and had been used by Israeli forces as a military zone.
It came as an international United Nations worker from Bulgaria was killed and five others seriously wounded in a strike on a UN guesthouse in the Gaza Strip.
Jorge Moreira da Silva, head of the UN Office for Project Services, declined to say who carried out the strike that killed the worker in the central city of Deir al Balah but said the explosive ordnance was “dropped or fired” and the blast was not accidental or related to demining activity.
The UN body, known as UNOPS, carries out infrastructure and development projects around the world.
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The Israel Defence Forces (IDF), which has carried out a massive series of airstrikes throughout Gaza since early Tuesday, denied earlier reports that it had targeted the UN compound.
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But Mr Moreira da Silva said strikes had hit near the compound on Monday and struck it directly on Tuesday and again on Wednesday, when the worker was killed.
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He said the agency had contacted the IDF after the first strike and confirmed that it was aware of the facility’s location. The UN’s secretary general Antonio Guterressaid he was “deeply saddened” by the staff member’s death and condemned attacks on UN personnel.
The war in Gaza has been among the deadliest conflicts ever for humanitarian workers, according to the UN.
At least 436 people, including 183 children and 94 women, have been killed since Israel launched the fresh wave of strikes, the Gaza Health Ministry said.
The IDF claims it only targets 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.
Meanwhile, the Israeli army said it attacked a Hamas military site overnight from which the militant group planned to launch strikes into Israel.
The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) targeted the site in northern Gaza as it was where “preparations were being made to fire projectiles at Israeli territory”, the military said in a statement.
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What happened to the Israel-Hamas ceasefire
The Israeli navy also struck several vessels in the coastal area of Gaza as they were intended to be used for “terrorist activities”, the IDF claimed.
Israel issued fresh evacuation orders on Wednesday for different areas across the Gaza Strip and told people to move to known shelters in Khan Younis and western Gaza City.
The latest strikes come weeks after the end of the first phase of the ceasefire, during which Israel and Hamas exchanged hostages for prisoners and were set to negotiate an extension to the truce that was meant to bring about an eventual end to the war.
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.
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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.
More than one million people risked being left without food parcels in March if aid was not allowed into Gaza, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported the Food Security Sector as saying.
The war, sparked by Hamas’ 7 October 2023 killing of 1,200 people and capture of 250 more in southern Israel, has killed more than 48,000 Palestinians in the Strip, Gazan health officials say.
