The Israeli military says its troops are continuing “operational activity along the Morag corridor in the Rafah area” in southern Gaza.
A video released on Thursday by the IDF showed troops operating. The army says it destroyed a training compound in the enclave “which contained a mock tank modelled after an IDF tank.”
Israel announced it completed the construction of a new security corridor, essentially separating the southern city of Rafah from the rest of the Gaza Strip, further squeezing Palestinians into shrinking wedges of land, as airstrikes continued across the enclave.
The new security corridor, known as the Morag, refers to the name of a Jewish settlement that once stood between Rafah and Khan Younis.
Meanwhile, Israeli strikes on the enclave overnight into Thursday killed at least 23 people, including a family of 10, according to local health officials.
The United Nations has raised alarm over the mounting impact of Israel’s six-week-old blockade preventing all food and other supplies from entering the territory.
A strike in the southern city of Khan Younis killed five children, four women and a man from the same family, all of whom suffered severe burns, according to Nasser Hospital, which received the bodies.
Strikes in northern Gaza killed 13 people, including nine children, according to medical professionals at the Indonesian Hospital.
The Israeli military says it tries to avoid harming civilians and blames their deaths on Hamas because it operates in residential areas, and accuses the group of using them as human shields.
There was however no immediate Israeli comment on the latest strikes.
The UN humanitarian office, known as OCHA, said that almost all of Gaza’s more than 2 million population solely rely on the one million prepared meals produced daily by the various charity kitchens set up by aid groups for food.
The UN has also warned that if the dire living conditions don’t end soon, much of the population are at serious risk of starvation and malnourishment.
Other food distribution programmes have shut down for lack of supplies, and the UN and other aid groups have been sending their remaining stocks to charity kitchens.
The only other way to get food in Gaza is from markets but prices are spiralling and shortages are widespread, meaning humanitarian aid is the primary food source for at least 80% of the population, according to the World Food Program who released the figures in the April edition of their monthly reports.
The war began when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel on 7 October, 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting 251. Most of the hostages have since been released in ceasefire agreements or other deals. Israel has rescued eight and recovered dozens of bodies.
Israel's offensive has so far killed 51,065 and injured another 116,505 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry.
The figures do not distinguish between civilian and combatant casualties. The UN says that around two-thirds of deaths they’ve been able to verify were women and children.
Israel says it has killed around 20,000 Hamas militants, but has not provided evidence.
The war has destroyed vast parts of Gaza and most of its food production capabilities. International organisations say around 60% of all buildings and critical infrastructure in the enclave sustained heavy damage or was fully destroyed. Rebuilding efforts are predicted to take decades to restore the strip to pre-war levels.
Around 90% of the population have been displaced, many of them multiple times in the 16-months of fighting. Hundreds of thousands of people still live in tent camps and bombed-out buildings.
