Defense Minister Israel Katz said Wednesday that the IDF is close to encircling Gaza City and that residents have a “last opportunity” to flee but will need to go through Israeli checkpoints, as Hamas was set to respond to a US ceasefire proposal that Israel agreed to.
Katz’s ultimatum came as medical sources in Hamas-run Gaza reported at least 35 people killed by Israeli fire across the enclave. Israel, which is seeking to conquer Gaza City, on Wednesday announced the closure of a road leading to the city, while the Red Cross said the fighting forced it to temporarily suspend operations there.
Meanwhile, terrorists in the northern Gaza Strip fired two rockets at southern Israel, which were intercepted by the IDF Wednesday afternoon. The attack, which set off sirens in Gaza border communities, did not result in damage or injuries.
In a press release, Katz said the IDF is currently seizing the western portion of the Netzarim Corridor — south of Gaza City — up to the coast, “bisecting Gaza between its north and south.”
“This will tighten the encirclement around Gaza City and everyone leaving it to the south will be forced to pass through IDF checkpoints,” said Katz. “This is the last opportunity for Gaza residents who wish to do so to move south and leave Hamas terrorists isolated in Gaza City, in the face of IDF activity that continues with full force.”
People remaining in Gaza City will be “terrorists and supporters of terror,” Katz continued. “The IDF is preparing for all possibilities and is determined to continue its operations, until the return of all the hostages and the disarmament of Hamas, en route to ending the war.”
The IDF later announced it had achieved “operational control” over the Netzarim Corridor’s western portion, preventing Palestinians from returning to Gaza City. The vast majority of the city’s roughly 1 million residents have fled, according to a military assessment.
In the past day, the 99th Division began a ground operation aimed at “strengthening and maintaining operational control over the Netzarim Corridor,” added the military. “The troops operated to disrupt the operational capabilities of the Hamas terror organization in the area and to expand operational control in the sector.”
Southbound movement from Gaza City is still permitted via the Rashid coastal road, whose northbound direction Israel said earlier Wednesday that it would seal off.
Witnesses said Israeli tanks began moving towards the coastal road coming from the east, but were not yet there.
In recent weeks, few people have moved from the south to the north amid the IDF’s intensifying siege on Gaza City.
However, the decision will put pressure on those who are yet to leave Gaza City and also prevent hundreds of thousands of residents who have fled south from returning to their homes, likely deepening fears in the Strip of permanent displacement.
The IDF previously held the entire Netzarim Corridor. It withdrew from the western portion in February as part of a ceasefire-hostage deal with Hamas.
In a daily update on Wednesday, the IDF detailed recent operations by ground troops operating in Gaza City and its outskirts.
Troops of the 36th Division raided a building used by Hamas and seized weapons and military equipment, and in separate operations, killed terror operatives and destroyed infrastructure used by terror groups, the military said.
The IDF said forces of the 162nd Division directed a drone strike against several terror operatives who were identified in their area of operations, deep in Gaza City.
The 98th Division located several abandoned Hamas positions, where troops found numerous weapons and military equipment, and separately directed a strike that killed several Hamas operatives at a weapons depot, the army said.
On the outskirts of Gaza City, the IDF said, the 99th Division killed terror operatives who had posed a threat and struck several buildings used by terror groups.
The military also said Wednesday that a munition launched by an Israeli Air Force fighter jet at a target in the Gaza Strip exploded midair over the Mediterranean Sea due to a technical fault.
The IDF said there was no danger to the plane, and no damage or injuries were caused. The incident is under further investigation by the IAF.
Gaza City residents said Israeli planes and tanks pounded residential neighborhoods throughout the night.
“The explosions do not stop,” said Rabah Al-Halabi, 60, who is living in a tent on the premises of Gaza City’s Al-Shifa Hospital.
“I will not leave because the situation in Gaza City is no different from the situation in the southern Gaza Strip. All areas are dangerous, the bombing is everywhere, and displacement is terrifying and humiliating,” he told AFP.
“We are waiting for death, or perhaps relief from God and for the truce to come.”
Fadel Al-Jadba, 26, said he also would not leave Gaza City.
He said tanks were in the Tal al-Hawa neighborhood and that he “would not be surprised if they advance into Al-Rimal,” where he was sheltering.
“We want a ceasefire at any cost because we are frustrated, exhausted, and find no one in the world standing with us.”
Hamas’s civil defense agency reported that Israeli strikes killed at least 13 people in Gaza City on Wednesday, including seven in a family home and six in a strike on the Al-Falah school-turned-shelter in the city’s eastern Zeioun neighborhood. The school was hit twice, minutes apart, according to officials at Al-Ahli Hospital.
Among the casualties were first responders, they said. Five Palestinians were killed later on Wednesday morning, when a strike hit people gathered around a drinking water tank on the western side of Gaza City, the same hospital said.
Also in Gaza City, the Shifa Hospital said it received the body of a man killed in a strike on his apartment west of the city.
Israeli strikes also hit the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, killing a husband and wife, the Al-Awda hospital said. Another man was killed in a separate strike in the Bureij refugee camp, according to the same hospital.
A funeral was planned for Yahya Barzaq, a journalist working for Turkish broadcast outlet TRT, who was killed in a strike in Gaza on Tuesday, according to the broadcaster.
The IDF did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Barzaq or Wednesday’s strikes. The military says it takes measures to mitigate civilian casualties, and accuses Hamas of embedding itself in civilian infrastructure, including schools, shelters and residential buildings. It has also targeted several journalists, accusing them of ties to Hamas.
Due to the escalating hostilities, the International Committee of the Red Cross said it was forced to temporarily suspend operations in Gaza City and relocate staff.
“The ICRC will continue to strive to provide support to civilians in Gaza City, whenever circumstances allow, from our offices in Deir al-Balah and Rafah, which remain fully operational,” it said in a statement, referring to areas farther south in the Strip.
The departure will deepen the humanitarian crisis in the city, where the UN declared a famine in August in a report rejected by Israel. At least two hospitals had already shut down in Gaza City, and makeshift clinics there are overwhelmed, according to local authorities and a peer-reviewed study.
According to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry, more than 66,000 people in the Strip have been killed or are presumed dead since the terror group invaded Israel on October 7, 2023, sparking the Gaza war.
The toll cannot be verified and does not differentiate between civilians and fighters. Israel says it has killed over 22,000 combatants in battle as of August and another 1,600 terrorists inside Israel during the October 7 onslaught.
On Monday, US President Donald Trump presented a ceasefire-hostage deal proposal in a joint press conference at the White House with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who accepted the offer.
The proposal would release the remaining 48 hostages within 72 hours. In exchange, Israel would release 250 Palestinian prisoners serving life sentences; 1,700 Gazans, including all women and children, detained since the Hamas onslaught of October 7, 2023, which sparked the war in Gaza; and 15 bodies of deceased Gazans for every body of an Israeli hostage.
The proposal would also require a three-phase Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, disarm Hamas, demilitarize Gaza, ensure uninhibited humanitarian aid to the Strip and hand the enclave over to an international transitional government without Hamas or the Palestinian Authority.
Hamas has refused to disarm absent Palestinian statehood, which Israel rejects, and until “the occupation” is ended. It regards Israel’s existence as occupation, and avowedly seeks to destroy the Jewish state
The deal is supported by European, Arab and Muslim countries, as well as the Palestinian Authority. Hamas has yet to formally respond to the offer. Trump said Tuesday that the terror group would have “three or four” days to do so.