JERUSALEM: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday that the military is dividing Gaza and “seizing territory” to force Hamas to free hostages held in the Palestinian territory.
The military is “dissecting the (Gaza) Strip and increasing the pressure step by step so that (Hamas) will return our hostages”, Netanyahu said in a statement, adding that Israel “is seizing territory, striking terrorists, and destroying infrastructure”.
He added that the army is “taking control of the ‘Morag Axis’”, a strip of land that is expected to run between the southern governorates of Khan Yunis and Rafah.
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The name of the axis refers to a former Israeli settlement in the area that was evacuated during Israel’s disengagement from Gaza in 2005.
He likened the new axis to the Philadelphi Corridor, a strip of land along Egypt’s border that Israel says it needs to control to prevent weapons smuggling into the Palestinian territory from Egypt.
Netanyahu added that Israel will keep applying military pressure until Hamas frees the remaining hostages.
Of the 251 hostages seized during Hamas’s unprecedented October 7, 2023 attack, 58 are still held in Gaza including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.
Israel resumed major air strikes on the Palestinian territory on March 18, after talks on next steps in a six-week truce broke down.
Since March 18, at least 1,066 people have been killed in Gaza, according to figures last updated by the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry on Wednesday.
In total, 50,423 people have been killed since the start of the war triggered by Hamas’s October 2023 attack, according to the ministry’s figures, which the United Nations views as reliable.
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