By Eugenia Yosef, Kareem Khadder and Irene Nasser

(CNN) — Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz announced Wednesday a major expansion of the military’s operation in Gaza involving the seizure of large areas of land that would be “incorporated into Israel’s security zones.”

In the statement, Katz said the operation would also involve a “large-scale evacuation of Gaza’s population from combat zones,” without specifying details.

Signs of the operation’s expansion are yet to be seen on the ground, although the enclave saw heavy airstrikes that have so far killed dozens people in the last 24 hours, according to local authorities, including at least nine children when a UN shelter was hit.

According to the defense minister’s statement, the military operation would expand to “crush and clear the area of terrorists and terror infrastructure, while seizing large areas that will be incorporated into Israel’s security zone.”

The Israeli military’s spokesperson for Arabic media late on Tuesday ordered residents in Gaza’s southern Rafah area to leave their homes and move north.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also announced a military escalation in Gaza in a video speech on Wednesday and vowed to increase pressure on the strip until all hostages held there are released.

“We are also doing something else: We are seizing the Morag Corridor. This will be the second Philadelphi, an additional Philadelphi Corridor,” he added.

The Morag Corridor refers to the settlement of Morag that once lay between Khan Younis and Rafah in southern Gaza. The Philadelphi corridor is a 14-kilometer (8.7-mile) strip of land in southern Gaza along the border with Egypt.

“Because we are now dividing the strip and increasing the pressure step by step, so that they will give us our hostages. And as long as they do not give them to us, the pressure will increase until they do,” Netanyahu said.

There are 59 Israeli hostages held in Gaza, 24 believed to be alive, 35 believed to be dead.

Last month, an Israeli official and a second source familiar with the matter told CNN that Israel was making plans for a potential major ground offensive in Gaza that would involve sending tens of thousands of troops into combat to clear and occupy large swaths of the enclave.

Katz’s statement on Wednesday did not specify whether additional Israeli troops would be involved in the expanded operation.

The announcement comes as Israel continued its aerial bombardment on the strip. At least 17 people were killed in Israeli strikes overnight in southern Gaza, local hospitals said.

Among those killed, at least 13 people - including women and children - had been sheltering in a residential house after being displaced from the Rafah area, according to Nasser Hospital. Two others were killed in a separate strike in central Gaza, according to Al Awda Hospital, which received their bodies.

Also on Wednesday, Gaza’s Civil Defense said that 19 bodies, including those of nine children, were recovered following an Israeli airstrike on an UNRWA clinic that acted as a shelter for displaced people in Jabalya refugee camp in northern Gaza.

The IDF said it had “attacked terrorists from the Hamas terrorist organization” there, adding that “prior to the attack, many steps were taken to reduce the chance of harming civilians.” The IDF did not say whether the site it attacked was an UNRWA shelter but the UN said one of its facilities was hit.

Katz’s announcement also comes after thousands of Palestinians last week protested against Hamas and Israel’s war in Gaza. Buoyed by the protests, the defense minister called on Gazans to take to the streets, saying Hamas is “endangering” the lives of Palestinians in the enclave.

He said that the Israeli military would soon be operating “forcefully in additional areas in Gaza,” and urged Palestinians to remove Hamas from power and release all Israeli hostages.

“This is the only way to stop the war,” he said.

Israel resumed its offensive on Gaza two weeks ago, shattering a two-month-old ceasefire with Hamas, weeks after it imposed a complete blockade of humanitarian aid entering the enclave. It warned that its forces would maintain a permanent presence in parts of Gaza until the release of the remaining 24 hostages who are believed to still be alive.

Hundreds of Palestinians have been killed in the enclave since then and the UN has warned that food supplies are running out.

Local authorities and the United Nations have said that all bakeries in Gaza have closed due to a severe lack of fuel and flour. The closures are likely to accelerate the spread of famine in the strip, the head of the local Bakery Owners’ Association, Abdel Nasser Al-Ajrami told the Palestinian Press Agency Safa.

Gaza’s fragile ceasefire was shattered on March 18 as Israel carried out deadly strikes across the enclave and Netanyahu vowed to use “increasing military strength” against Hamas.

Israel launched a war on Hamas in Gaza on October 7, 2023, following the militant group’s surprise attack on southern Israel that killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took 251 hostage, according to Israeli authorities.

More than 50,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since Israel’s war with Hamas began, according to the territory’s health ministry.

Hostage families are ‘horrified’

The Israeli military, led by its new and more aggressive chief of staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, has been crafting plans for a large-scale operation in Gaza for weeks now. Such a decision could see the Israeli military occupying the territory and fighting insurgencies for years.

But a longer-term offensive in Gaza could also draw stiff resistance from the Israeli public, a majority of which has been clamoring for a hostage release deal instead of a return to war.

The families’ forum of the Israeli hostages on Wednesday said they were “horrified to wake up” to the news of the military operation being expanded.

“Instead of securing the release of the hostages through an agreement and ending the war, the Israeli government is sending more soldiers into Gaza to fight in the same places they have fought time and again,” the forum said in a statement.

Egypt and Qatar have intensified efforts to revive the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in recent days – with the militant group agreeing to a new Egyptian proposal on Sunday, and Israel responding with a counter-proposal on Monday.

Egypt’s proposal would see Hamas release five hostages, including the American-Israeli Edan Alexander, in exchange for a renewed ceasefire, a Hamas source told CNN. It’s similar to the proposal presented several weeks ago by US special envoy Steve Witkoff, although it is not clear whether it also includes the release of additional bodies of deceased hostages.

This story has been updated with additional information.

The-CNN-Wire
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