Gaza Strip: Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant has announced a significant escalation in the country’s military campaign across the Gaza Strip, urging residents in combat zones to evacuate immediately. The warning comes as the Israeli military claims to have completed the takeover of a strategic corridor in southern Gaza and fully encircled the city of Rafah.
“IDF operations will soon intensify and expand to other areas throughout most of Gaza,” Gallant said in a statement directed at Gaza residents. “You will need to evacuate the combat zones.”
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) stated on Friday that troops had successfully established control over what they call the “Morag Axis,” a corridor that once included an Israeli settlement located between the southern cities of Rafah and Khan Younis. The corridor’s seizure effectively cuts off Rafah from the rest of the Gaza Strip and completes the IDF’s strategic encirclement of the area.
“Over the past 24 hours, the 36th Division’s troops completed the establishment of the Morag route,” the IDF announced, highlighting the move as part of a broader strategy to push deeper into the southern parts of the enclave.
Since operations resumed in Gaza on March 18, the Israeli military has issued repeated evacuation orders to hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in Rafah. Many of these civilians, already displaced from other parts of Gaza, are now being forced into increasingly crowded and unsafe zones near the coast and the Egyptian border.
The renewed offensive follows a temporary ceasefire earlier this year, which was abandoned in March. Israel launched its military campaign in response to Hamas’s deadly October 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel, in which around 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken hostage, according to Israeli authorities.
Israel says its campaign will continue until all remaining hostages are released—believed to be 59 people—and until Hamas is fully dismantled in Gaza. The Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza reports that more than 50,000 Palestinians have been killed in the conflict, with much of the territory reduced to rubble and the majority of the population displaced.
Hamas has maintained that any release of hostages must be part of a broader deal to end the war and has so far rejected calls to lay down its arms. Reports suggest a Hamas delegation is expected in Cairo this weekend to discuss new truce proposals.
As the humanitarian crisis deepens and military operations intensify, international pressure is growing for both sides to reach a negotiated end to the conflict.
