Hamas / Israel / Middle East..4/2/2025…Will Israel actually move masses out of Gaza?

Israel’s defence minister has said the country intends to “seize large areas” of the Gaza Strip amid a major expansion of aerial and ground operations in the besieged Palestinian territory

Israel Katz said in a statement on Wednesday that “troops will move to clear areas of terrorists and infrastructure, and seize extensive territory that will be added to the state of Israel’s security areas”

Katz also said he was calling on Palestinian civilians to flee areas where fighting had returned after the collapse of a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas last month and to “act now to overthrow Hamas and return all the hostages”

Israel continued to target the Gaza Strip, with airstrikes overnight killing 17 people in the southern city of Khan Younis. Another 15 people were killed in a strike in the north of the strip Wednesday, according to officials at hospitals where the bodies were taken. Among those killed by the strikes were at five women, one of them pregnant, and two children

The Israeli military issued sweeping evacuation orders last week for people in Rafah and a swath of land stretching northwards towards Khan Younis to move to al-Mawasi, an area on the shore that Israel has designated as a humanitarian zone but repeatedly bombed

Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to travel to Hungary, despite the host country being a signatory to the international criminal court (ICC), which has issued an arrest warrant for the Israeli prime minister on suspicion of war crimes

Hamas and Jordan’s foreign ministry criticised far-right national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir for a visit to Jerusalem’s holiest sites on Wednesday morning. Jordan called it “a dangerous escalation, unacceptable provocation, and desecration of the holiness of the al-Aqsa mosque”

A demonstration has taken place in Jerusalem, with protesters calling for the government to enact a new conscription law which would end the exemption ultra-Orthodox Jewish men have on serving in the IDF

Crowds gathered in Nablus for the funeral of a 33-year-old man, Hamza al-Hamash, who was shot and killed by Israeli forces in the Israeli-occupied city earlier on Wednesday. Israeli forces also reportedly made arrests in Hebron, Tulkarm and Nour Shams