Israel’s ground ops in Gaza after bombardment, UN staff killed

Israeli strikes overnight have killed dozens of Palestinians across Gaza, medics in the territory said Thursday, 20 March. [ED: This is a developing story; more to come...]

The strikes hit houses in the cities of Khan Younis and Rafah in southern Gaza and the northern town of Beit Lahiya, they said.

Earlier, Israel claimed late on Wednesday, 19 March, that its troops have ‘retaken’ part of a corridor that bisects Gaza — this essentially means Palestinians have no way to flee from one side to another.

Its defence minister has warned that attacks will intensify until Hamas frees the dozens of hostages it still holds — 24 are believed to be still alive — and crucially, gives up control of the Palestinian territory it governs which Israel wishes to lay claim to.

The IDF (Israel Defense Forces) said they had retaken part of the Netzarim Corridor that divides northern Gaza from the south — and from where Israel had previously withdrawn as part of the ceasefire agreement that came into effect in January.

That truce was shattered on Tuesday, 18 March, by Israeli airstrikes that that killed over 400 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, mostly women and children, according to the Gaza health ministry.

The advances by Israel on Wednesday — which included sending more troops to southern Gaza — seem to presage another ghastly war on Gaza. This after the ceasefire had given war-weary Palestinians some respite, allowed a much-needed surge of humanitarian aid into Gaza — and led to the release of dozens of hostages who had been held for more than 15 months.

But possibly bringing home hostages was never a top priority of the Israeli government, given its statements within Israel and to the world. The objective has always been an eradication of Hamas and a ‘cleansing’ of Palestinian territories. And prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has more than enough support from the US alone, not to mention other Western nations, to see it through.

Notably, there have been no reports of retaliatory rocket attacks by Hamas since Tuesday’s bombardment.

Meanwhile, the United Nations said on Wednesday that one of its employees was killed in Gaza and five others wounded in a strike on a guesthouse.

Israel’s latest ‘limited’ ground operations in Gaza

The military said that its “limited ground operation” in Gaza would create a “partial buffer between northern and southern Gaza”.

While it wasn’t clearly whether the move was to entirely block Palestinians from travelling north–south along the Netzarim Corridor, this seems the most likely outcome.

Israel used the roughly 4-mile (6 kilometre) corridor as a military zone prior to the ceasefire. It runs from the Israeli border to the coast, just south of Gaza city, severing the territory’s largest metropolitan area — and the rest of the north from the south.

Israel continued with airstrikes in Gaza on Wednesday, 19 March, too — though at a lower intensity than Tuesday. While it claimed hits on dozens of ‘militant sites’, including the ‘command centre of a Hamas battalion’, it denied Palestinian claims that it had hit the UN guesthouse.

Fares Awad, an official in the Gaza health ministry, said an Israeli strike on a gathering of mourners in the northern town of Beit Lahiya killed 14 and wounded 30 others. The Israeli military had no comment.

Israel will order new evacuations for Palestinians in Gaza soon

Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who had fled northern Gaza for the south were prevented from returning throughout the war, until Israel withdrew from the Netzarim in January. Many of them have since returned.

But Israel Katz, the Israeli defence minister, said the military would soon order Palestinians to evacuate from ‘combat zones’.

Katz said Tuesday's aerial bombardment “was just the first step” in Israel's plan to ratchet up the pressure on Hamas to release the remaining hostages and give up control of Gaza. Until it does, Israel will attack “with an intensity that you have not known”.

UN worker is killed in strike

The nationality of the one killed and five wounded UN staff remain unknown thus far.

Jorge Moreira da Silva, head of the UN Office for Project Services, declined to say who carried out the strike in the central city of Deir al-Balah — but did say the blast was not accidental nor related to demining activity.

Moreira da Silva said strikes had hit near the compound on Monday and struck it directly on Tuesday and again on Wednesday.

He said the agency had contacted the Israeli military after the first strike. “Israel knew this was a UN premise, that people were living, staying and working there,” he said.

Lt Col. Nadav Shoshani, a military spokesperson, insisted the explosion was not caused by Israeli fire. “There were no forces around that building, no aerial attacks on that area,” he said.

After the strike on Wednesday, the wounded were rushed to Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Hospital in central city of Deir al-Balah. One man was carried inside on a blanket held up by medical workers. Another lay on a hospital bed, his knee bandaged. A blue protective vest emblazoned with ‘UN’ rested on a nearby bed.

Before this week's attacks, Israel and Hamas were set to negotiate an extension of the first phase of the ceasefire agreement, which lasted six weeks.

But those talk never got off the ground. Hamas has demanded that Israel stick to the terms of the initial ceasefire deal, including a full withdrawal from Gaza and an end to the war.

Israel, which has vowed to defeat Hamas, has put forward a new proposal that would extend the truce and free more hostages held by Hamas, without a commitment to end the war.

The breakdown of the ceasefire was met with anger in Israel, where many support the plight of the hostage families to free their loved ones.

Israel's return to a military campaign came as Netanyahu faces mounting domestic pressure, with mass protests taking place over his handling of the hostage crisis and his plan to fire the head of Israel's internal security agency.

The return of Ben-Gvir and the far-right support

Meanwhile, a key leader of Israel's far-right party returned to Netanyahu's cabinet as national security minister on 19 March, Wednesday. This was in response to the IDF carrying out its wave of heavy strikes, ending the ceasefire.

Itamar Ben-Gvir had left Netanyahu's coalition in January to protest the ceasefire with Hamas, which was quite summarily blown up by Israel's bombardment on Tuesday, 18 March.

A government statement on Wednesday said Ben-Gvir, leader of the ultranationalist Jewish Power party, has regained his portfolio as national security minister.

His return strengthens Netanyahu's coalition ahead of a crucial budget vote this month and improves its chances of surviving until the next scheduled elections, in October 2026.

Ben-Gvir supports the full resumption of the war with the aim of annihilating Hamas, depopulating Gaza through what he refers to as the ‘voluntary migration’ of Palestinians and (re)building Jewish settlements there.

Netanyahu had said that the series of airstrikes was “only the beginning” and that Israel would press ahead until it achieves all of its war aims — destroying Hamas and freeing all hostages held by the militant group since 7 October 2023. Experts have pointed out that these may be incompatible goals.

Gaza's health ministry said that Tuesday's strikes had killed at least 409 people, including 173 children and 88 women. Zaher al-Waheidi, head of the ministry's records department, described it as the deadliest day in Gaza since the start of the war.

But not everyone in Israel likes the renewed assault

Not all Israelis agree with Ben-Gvir and Netanyahu, as Congress MP Priyanka Gandhi Vadra has pointed out — and foremost among them the families of the Hamas hostages.

Gandhi Vadra referred to this latest, most terrible attack on Gaza in the midst of Ramzan — traditionally a time of ceasefire (which US president Donald Trump claims Netanyahu had agreed to) — as 'cold-blooded murder' attesting to a certain lack of humanity. She noted that people with a conscience the world over disagreed with Netanyahu's actions — including Israelis.

Indeed, on the same day, 19 March, in Jerusalem itself, thousands marched in protest against the president's resumption of the war. The protestors’ key contention has been that the IDF assaults — air or ground — could further endanger some of the two dozen-odd hostages still believed to be alive in Hamas custody.

It was a sea of Israeli flags — rather than Palestine's watermelon colours — that was visible outside the Israeli parliament the day after Netanyahu shattered the fragile ceasefire he never really wanted.

Families and supporters of the hostages have long known that the IDF’s ‘retaliation against Hamas’ — for 7 October and its hostage taking — also pen a potential death sentence for their loved ones in captivity.

When the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas began in January, Herut Nimrodi knew it would take time before her son was released from captivity in Gaza. The 20-year-old soldier was meant to be part of the second phase of the deal winding down the war.

But with Israel's surprise bombardment of Gaza, she fears he might not come home at all.

“I really wanted to believe that there is still a chance to reach a second stage without renewing this war. But it feels like my building of hope has collapsed, and I have no idea what to do next,” Nimrodi said Tuesday.

Hamas still holds 59 hostages, including the 24 who are believed to be alive — meaning, 35 of these are the bodies of the dead (apart from those already returned or lost).

Some of those returning hostages too have spoken up against Netanyahu's government.

“Returning to fighting? Did you listen to a word of what we, the returnees released in the last deal, have been saying to you?" former hostage Omer Wenkert wrote on Instagram.

Nimrodi said she's worried the airstrikes might not only harm her son and the other hostages but also make their living conditions worse.

The hostages “are waiting for us to take them out and to bring them home, but war will not do it. Only negotiations will do it,” protester Alon Shirizly said, per an Associated Press report.

Hamas contends it has not killed any hostages, that they have died in Israel's assault on Gaza — collateral damage, as it were.

Israel has argued Hamas has used the hostages as shields, if not killing them or causing their death with torture or starvation.

It must be remembered here that it is Israel that controls Gaza's access to food, water and electricity, as well as medical aid — and it has blockaded all humanitarian aid as of the beginning of March 2025* to try and pressure Hamas to agree to Israel's terms, rather than negotiate a hostage/prisoner exchange.

During the ceasefire's first phase, which began in January, Hamas released 25 Israeli hostages and the bodies of eight others in exchange for nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners of various ages and durations ‘detained’ by Israel over the years, many without trial. 

But was Netanyahu using the Shin-Bet chief as his shield?

The demonstrators in Jerusalem, meanwhile, are also protesting against Netanyahu firing the head of Israel's internal security agency for his failures, the latest in a series of moves that his critics view as an assault on Israeli democracy.

It was Netanyahu himself who has been under fire back home over the IDF's failure to see 7 October 2023 coming — and this move against the Shin-Bet chief certainly looks like scapegoating and deflection on his part,

*It is worth noting, of course, that this ‘new’ aid blockade is just the latest tightening of an ongoing blockade of varying intensities across the Gaza Strip for some 17 years now.

With PTI and AP inputs