Israel vows to take more land in Gaza to pressure Hamas into releasing hostages

Israel’s defence minister said he has ordered ground forces to advance deeper into the Gaza Strip, and vowed to hold more land until Hamas releases the remaining hostages it holds.

Israel Katz said: “The more Hamas continues its refusal to release the kidnapped, the more territory it will lose to Israel.”

It came after an explosion east of Gaza City killed a couple and their two children, plus two additional children who were not related to them but were in the same building, according to witnesses and a local hospital.

The Israeli army said it struck a militant in a Gaza City building and took steps to minimise civilian harm. It was not immediately clear if the army was referring to the same strike.

The Israeli military said on social media it was planning to conduct raids in three neighbourhoods west of Gaza City, and it warned Palestinians to evacuate the area in advance.

Hamas had also fired three rockets the previous day in its first attack since Israel ended the ceasefire.

A long-range missile fired by Yemen’s Houthi rebels set off air raid sirens over Jerusalem and central Israel for the fourth day in a row on Friday, with the military saying it was intercepted.

After retaking part of the strategic Netzarim corridor that divides Gaza’s north from south, Israeli troops moved towards the northern town of Beit Lahiya and the southern border city of Rafah on Thursday.

The military said it had resumed enforcing a blockade on northern Gaza, including Gaza City.

Meanwhile, Israel’s top court ordered a temporary halt to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s dismissal of the country’s domestic security chief until his appeal can be heard.

The Supreme Court’s decision came hours after Mr Netanyahu’s cabinet unanimously approved his request to fire the head of the Shin Bet internal security service, Ronen Bar.

The court said it was delaying the removal until an appeal could be heard no later than April 8.

Mr Netanyahu’s office had said Mr Bar’s dismissal was effective as of April 10, but that it could come earlier if a replacement was found.

Israel’s attorney general has ruled that the cabinet has no legal basis to dismiss Mr Bar.

A Shin Bet report into Hamas’ attack on October 7 2023 that prompted the war acknowledged failures by the security agency. But it also said policies by Mr Netanyahu’s government created the conditions for the attack.

Mr Netanyahu is also upset that the Shin Bet has launched an investigation into connections between some of his close aides and the Gulf state of Qatar.

Mr Netanyahu sounded defiant in a social media post on Friday evening, saying: “The State of Israel is a state of law and according to the law, the Israeli government decides who will be the head of the Shin Bet.”

Nearly 600 Palestinians have been killed since Tuesday, when Israel shattered a truce that had facilitated the release of more than two dozen hostages and brought relative calm since late January.

The ceasefire agreed to in mid-January was a three-phase plan meant to lead to a long-term cessation of hostilities, a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, and the return of all hostages taken by Hamas in its surprise attack on Israel.

In the first phase of the ceasefire, Hamas returned 25 living hostages and the remains of eight others in exchange for the release of nearly 1,800 Palestinian prisoners. Israeli forces also withdrew to buffer zones inside Gaza, and hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians returned to northern Gaza.

The ceasefire was supposed to continue as long as talks on the second phase continued but Mr Netanyahu baulked at entering substantive negotiations.

Instead, he tried to force Hamas to accept a new ceasefire plan put forth by US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff.

That plan would have required Hamas to release half its remaining hostages – the militant group’s main bargaining chip – in exchange for a ceasefire extension and a promise to negotiate a lasting truce.

Israel made no mention of releasing more Palestinian prisoners – a key component of the first phase.

Hamas says it will only release the remaining hostages in exchange for a lasting ceasefire and a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, as called for in the original ceasefire agreement mediated by the United States, Egypt and Qatar.

The militant group has said it is willing to hand over power to the Western-backed Palestinian Authority or a committee of political independents but will not lay down its arms until Israel ends its decades-long occupation of lands the Palestinians want for a future state.

Hamas said in a statement on Friday that the sacking of Shin Bet’s head shows a “deepening crisis of distrust” within Israel’s leadership, and claimed that Mr Netanyahu “engineered sham negotiations to stall and buy time without any genuine intention of reaching tangible outcomes”.

Mr Netanyahu said he had ordered the resumed strikes on Gaza because of Hamas’ rejection of the new proposal.

As Israeli forces advanced deeper into the Gaza Strip on Friday they blew up the only specialised cancer hospital in the wartorn territory.

The hospital was located in the Netzarim Corridor.

The Israeli military said it struck the Turkish-Palestinian Friendship Hospital, which was inaccessible to doctors and patients during the war, because Hamas militants were operating in the site. Turkey, which helped build and fund the hospital, said Israeli troops at one point used it as a base.

Dr Zaki Al-Zaqzouq, head of the hospital’s oncology department, said a medical team visited the facility during the ceasefire and found that, while it had suffered damage, some facilities remained in good condition.

“I cannot fathom what could be gained from bombing a hospital that served as a lifeline for so many patients,” he said in a statement issued by the aid group Medical Aid for Palestinians.

The Turkish Foreign Ministry condemned the hospital’s destruction and accused Israel of deliberately “rendering Gaza uninhabitable and forcibly displacing the Palestinian people”.