Israel has said its military had completed the takeover of a new corridor in southern Gaza, advancing its efforts to seize large parts of the war-battered Palestinian territory.
The military also announced a sweeping evacuation order for tens of thousands of residents of Khan Younis and surrounding areas in southern Gaza ahead of a planned strike after projectiles were fired from there.
The seizure of the corridor came as a Hamas official said the group expected "real progress" towards a ceasefire deal to end the Gaza war, ahead of talks with Egyptian mediators in Cairo later.
Israel said on 2 April that troops had begun seizing an area it called the Morag Axis, a reference to a former Israeli settlement once located between the cities of Rafah and Khan Younis, in southern Gaza.
Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz announced that the military plans to expand its ongoing offensive across much of Gaza, warning residents to evacuate from active combat zones.
"Soon, IDF operations will intensify and expand to other areas throughout most of Gaza, and you will need to evacuate the combat zones," Mr Katz said in a statement addressed to residents of Gaza, as he also announced that troops had completed the takeover of a corridor in the southern part of the territory.
Israeli forces completed the encirclement of Gaza's Rafah, the military said today, part of an announced plan to seize more areas of the enclave, accompanied by large-scale evacuations of the population.
The military has issued repeated evacuation warnings to hundreds of thousands of Palestinians across Rafah since it resumed operations in Gaza on 18 March, forcing them into a diminishing space limited by the sea.
Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have since fled Rafah, a 60sq.km area that borders Egypt to the south.
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The Israeli offensive in Gaza was launched after Palestinian militant group Hamas attacked southern Israel on 7 October 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 hostage, according to Israeli tallies.
More than 50,000 Palestinians have since been killed in the offensive, according to the health ministry in Gaza.
The UN considers these figures to be reliable.
Most of the population has been displaced and much of Gaza is in ruins.
Israel restarted the offensive in March after effectively abandoning a ceasefire in place since January.
Since Israel resumed its Gaza strikes, more than 1,500 people have been killed, according to the health ministry in the territory to which Israel cut off aid more than a month ago.
The UN said that in many of these strikes "only women and children" were killed.
The campaign will continue, it says, until the remaining 59 hostages are freed and Hamas is stamped out of Gaza.
Hamas says it will free hostages only as part of a deal that will end the war and has rejected demands to lay down its arms.
Talks expected in Cairo
Since a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas collapsed in mid-March, Israel's renewed offensive has displaced hundreds of thousands of people as the military has seized large areas of Gaza.
Hamas said the offensive not only "kills defenceless civilians but also makes the fate of the occupation's prisoners (hostages) uncertain".
In a separate announcement, Israel ordered residents of Khan Younis and surrounding areas to evacuate after the air force intercepted three projectiles fired from southern Gaza.
The United Nations had warned yesterday that expanding Israeli evacuation orders were resulting in the "forcible transfer" of people into ever-shrinking areas, raising "real concern as to the future viability of Palestinians as a group in Gaza".
A Hamas delegation and Egyptian mediators will meet later in Cairo.
"We hope the meeting will achieve real progress towards reaching an agreement to end the war, halt the aggression and ensure the full withdrawal of occupation forces from Gaza," a Hamas official familiar with the ceasefire negotiations said on condition of anonymity.
The official said Hamas has not yet received any new ceasefire proposals, despite Israeli media reports suggesting that Israel and Egypt had exchanged draft documents outlining a potential ceasefire and hostage release agreement.
"However, contacts and discussions with mediators are ongoing," he said.
