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Israel has announced a major new offensive in Gaza after launching a wave of airstrikes on the territory that killed more than 100 people, in what it said was a fresh effort to force Hamas to release hostages.
In a statement late on Friday, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said they had “launched extensive attacks and mobilized forces to seize strategic areas in the Gaza Strip, as part of the opening moves of Operation Gideon’s Chariots and the expansion of the campaign in Gaza, to achieve all the goals of the war in Gaza”.
The announcement came as Donald Trump finished a visit to the region that included stops in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates but not Israel.
Earlier on Friday, Donald Trump acknowledged that people are starving in Gaza and claimed the US would have the situation in the territory “taken care of”.
The US president told reporters in Abu Dhabi: “We’re looking at Gaza. And we’re going to get that taken care of. A lot of people are starving.”
But discussions on the longer term future of Gaza have faltered. On Thursday, Trump described his desire to turn Gaza into a “freedom zone”, a possible reiteration of a plan he put forward in February for the US to take control of the Palestinian territory to allow for its reconstruction as a luxury leisure and business hub.
Late on Friday NBC reported that the Trump administration was working on a plan to permanently relocate as many as 1 million Palestinians from the Gaza Strip to Libya.
The US was considering releasing billions of dollars of frozen Libyan funds in exchange for resettling the Palestinians, the report said. The US state department did not respond to a request for comment.
Under the Geneva conventions and the Rome statute, the arbitrary and permanent forcible transfer of populations is a war crime.
There had been widespread hope that Trump’s visit to the region could lead to a fresh pause in hostilities or a renewal of humanitarian aid to Gaza.
Instead, the raids and bombardment over the past 72 hours have raised the levels of violence higher than for several weeks, with the death toll coming close to that seen in the first days of Israel’s renewed offensive in Gaza after a fragile ceasefire collapsed in March.
Gaza’s civil defence agency said strikes on Friday killed 108 people, mostly women and children, and some officials in the Palestinian territory put the number killed by Israeli attacks in recent days as high as 250 or 300.
At least 48 bodies were taken to the Indonesian hospital in northern Gaza, and 16 to Nasser hospital after strikes on the outskirts of the central town of Deir al-Balah and the southern city of Khan Younis, health officials said.
In Jabaliya, a neighbourhood in the north of Gaza that has seen heavy bombardment for weeks, women sat weeping beside 10 bodies draped in white sheets that were lined up on the ground amid rubble.
Umm Mohammed al-Tatari, 57, said she had been awoken by a pre-dawn attack on northern Gaza.
“We were asleep when suddenly everything exploded around us … everyone started running … there was blood everywhere, body parts and corpses,” she said.
Israel’s military said its air force had struck more than 150 “terror” targets across Gaza.
Hamas still holds 57 of about 250 hostages seized in its October 2023 attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of about 1,200 people, mostly civilians.
Israel says the blockade and intensified bombardments since mid-March are intended to put pressure on the militant organisation to secure the release of the hostages. Fewer than half are believed to be still alive.
Israel’s retaliatory military offensive has killed about 53,000 people in Gaza, most of them civilians, according to the health ministry there.
A ceasefire that came into effect in January broke down in mid-March after Israel refused to move to a scheduled second phase that could have led to a definitive end to the war.
Some of the heaviest Israeli strikes earlier this week were aimed at the current commander of Hamas in Gaza, who, Israeli officials said, was sheltering in tunnel systems under a big hospital complex in Khan Younis. Hamas has denied repeated Israeli accusations that it uses civilians as human shields.
Israel has called up tens of thousands of reservists for the new offensive, in which troops will hold on to seized territory and which will lead to a significant displacement of the population, Benjamin Netanyahu has said. Israeli ministers have spoken of “conquering” Gaza.
Hamas on Monday freed Edan Alexander, the last living US citizen it held, after direct engagement with the Trump administration that left Israel sidelined.
As part of the understanding with Washington regarding Alexander’s release, Taher al-Nunu, a senior Hamas official, said the group was “awaiting and expecting the US administration to exert further pressure” on Israel “to open the crossings and allow the immediate entry of humanitarian aid”.
Israeli officials have consistently denied the tight blockade imposed on the devastated territory more than 10 weeks ago has caused hunger and Trump’s comments will be seen as further evidence of tensions between Netanyahu and Israel’s closest ally.
Israel, which claims Hamas systematically loots aid to fund its military and other operations, has put forward a plan to distribute humanitarian assistance from a series of hubs in Gaza run by private contractors and protected by Israeli troops.
The US has backed the plan, which has been described as unworkable, dangerous and potentially unlawful by aid agencies because it could lead to the mass forced transfer of populations.
Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, on Thursday acknowledged the criticism and said Washington was “open to an alternative if someone has a better one”.
The US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which has been set up to manage the scheme, announced on Wednesday that it would begin operating by the end of the month and that it had asked Israel to lift its blockade to allow aid to reach the territory immediately.
Aid agencies have warned that any delay will cost lives, and that cases of acute malnutrition, particularly among young children, are soaring.
Polls in Israel show widespread support for a new ceasefire to secure the hostages’ release, but local media reports quoted statements from anonymous Israeli and regional officials downplaying any likelihood of a breakthrough.
Israel’s main group representing the families of hostages still being held in Gaza said on Friday that Netanyahu was missing a “historic opportunity” for them to be released.
Recent days have seen violence intensify in the occupied West Bank and new launches of missiles at Israel by the Yemen-based Houthi militia.
Israel struck Yemen’s Red Sea ports of Hodeidah and Salif on Friday, continuing its campaign to degrade Houthi military capabilities.
