• Well-known writer among 13 killed in strikes • Enclave a ‘mass grave’ of Palestinians: MSF
• Israeli minister says no humanitarian aid will enter Gaza

JERUSALEM: Israel’s army said Wednesday it had turned 30 per cent of Gaza into a “security” buffer zone and struck around 1,200 targets since resuming its military offensive in the Palestinian territory on March 18.

“Approximately 30 per cent of the Gaza Strip’s territory is now designated as an Operational Security Perimeter,” the military said in a statement, adding that Israeli air strikes had hit “approximately 1,200 terror targets” and that “more than 100 targeted eliminations have been carried out” since March 18.

Israeli troops will remain in the buffer zones they have created in Gaza even after any settlement to end the war, Defence Minister Israel Katz said on Wednesday.

Since resuming military operations last month, Israeli forces have carved out a broad “security zone” extending deep into Gaza and squeezing more than 2m Palestinians into ever smaller areas in the south and along the coastline.

“Unlike in the past, the IDF is not evacuating areas that have been cleared and seized,” Katz said in a statement following a meeting with military commanders.

“The IDF will remain in the security zones as a buffer between the enemy and the communities in any temporary or permanent situation in Gaza — as in Lebanon and Syria.”

In a summary of its operations over the past month, the Israeli military said it now controls 30pc of the tiny Palestinian territory.

In southern Gaza alone, Israeli forces have seized the border city of Rafah and pushed inland up to the so-called “Morag corridor” that runs from the eastern edge of Gaza to the Mediterranean Sea, between Rafah and the city of Khan Yunis.

It already held a wide corridor across the central Netzarim area and has extended a buffer zone all around the frontier hundreds of metres inland, including the Shejaia area just to the east of Gaza City in the north.

Mass grave

Gaza has become a “mass grave” for Palestinians and those trying to help them, medical charity MSF said on Wednesday, as medics said the Israeli military killed at least 13 in the north of the enclave and continued to demolish homes in Rafah in the south.

Palestinian medics said an air strike killed 10 people, including the well-known writer and photographer, Fatema Hassouna, whose work has captured the struggles faced by her community in Gaza City through the war. A strike on another house further north killed three, they said.

Meanwhile, Israel said on Wednesday it would keep blocking humanitarian aid entering Gaza.

Israel had already halted the entry of aid into Gaza on March 2, exacerbating the severe humanitarian crisis in the war-battered territory.

Defence Minister Israel Katz said Israel would continue preventing aid from entering the besieged territory of 2.4 million people.

Published in Dawn, April 17th, 2025