IDF ground forces operating in Gaza; Katz warns of ‘total destruction’ unless hostages returned

The IDF said Wednesday it had launched “pinpoint” ground operations in the central and southern Gaza Strip, as Defense Minister Israel Katz warned that Hamas’s continued rule in the enclave would lead to its “total destruction and ruin.”

The army said its operations were aimed at expanding the security zone near the border and creating a partial buffer between northern and southern Gaza. Troops of the 252nd Division entered the Netzarim Corridor area, a route that splits Gaza into north and south, capturing around half of it, up to the Salah a-Din road.

At the same time, the IDF said it deployed the Golani Brigade to the southern part of the Gaza border, readying it for action in the Strip.

Katz said Israel would soon issue evacuation orders for combat zones in the Strip.

“Gaza residents, this is a final warning. The first Sinwar ruined Gaza and the second Sinwar will completely obliterate it,” the defense minister said, referring to the slain leader of the terror group, Yahya Sinwar, and to his brother, Mohammed Sinwar, a senior Hamas military commander who is thought to have succeeded him.

“The Air Force strikes against Hamas terrorists were just the first step. Things will become much more difficult, and you will pay the full price,” he said.

Katz said that if the hostages are not released and Hamas is not removed from Gaza, “Israel will operate with strength you have not yet seen.”

“Take the US president’s advice. Return the hostages and remove Hamas, and other options will open up for you, including leaving for other places in the world for those who desire,” he said.

“The alternative is total destruction and ruin,” Katz added.

The Israel Defense Forces and Shin Bet security agency said Tuesday that Israel’s strikes have targeted cells of terror leaders and operatives, rocket-launching positions, weapons, and other Hamas and Islamic Jihad terror infrastructure.

The Hamas-run health ministry has said over 400 people have been killed since Israel renewed its offensive, including women and children. Its unverified figures do not differentiate between civilians and combatants.

Israel renewed its offensive overnight Monday-Tuesday, citing Hamas’s “repeated refusal” to free Israeli hostages.

The sides have been unable to agree on the continuation of the ceasefire, with Israel insisting on extending the first phase — with more hostage releases in return for the release of Palestinian prisoners and further calm — while the terror group has insisted on moving to the second phase, which envisioned Israel fully withdrawing from Gaza and agreeing to permanently end the war in exchange for the release of the remaining living hostages.

According to the terms of the January 19 deal, the sides were to launch negotiations over the second phase a few weeks into the first, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu refused to do so, insisting that the war will not end until Hamas’s governing and military capabilities have been demolished.

Troops of the 252nd Division operate in the Netzarim Corridor area of central Gaza, in a video issued by the military on March 19, 2025. (Israel Defense Forces)

Netanyahu said Tuesday night that from now on, negotiations on a continued ceasefire would only be conducted “under fire.”

Israel has previously made various offers including monetary rewards to Gazans who provide information that will lead to the release of hostages, to no avail.

Terror groups in the Gaza Strip are still holding 59 hostages, including 58 of the 251 abducted by Hamas-led terrorists on October 7, 2023. They include the bodies of at least 35 confirmed dead by the IDF.

Overnight, two United Nations employees were killed in an explosion at a UN facility in Deir al-Balah in central Gaza. Israel denied accusations it was responsible for the blast at the building. A UN source told AFP the two dead were employees of the UN Office for Project Services (UNOPS) and the UN mine-mitigation service UNMAS.

Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry said earlier that a foreigner was among those killed and five others were seriously wounded in the explosion in Deir al-Balah, which it blamed on Israel.

In a statement, the IDF said, “Contrary to reports, the IDF did not attack a UN compound in Deir al-Balah. The IDF calls on media outlets to exercise caution with unverified reports.”

Additionally, the IDF and Shin Bet announced that two more top Hamas officials were killed in airstrikes in the Gaza Strip over the past day.

One of the dead was Yasser Mohammed Harb Musa, a member of Hamas’s politburo who headed the defense portfolio and ministry of development.

“As part of his role, Musa handled the advancement and guidance of terror attacks against the State of Israel,” the IDF and Shin Bet said, adding that he was considered close to slain Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar.

The second Hamas official the IDF said it killed was Mohammed Jamasi, the chief of the terror group’s so-called emergency committee.

“Over the years, Jamasi held key positions in the political bureau and the leadership of the movement and as part of his role in the war, he coordinated a significant portion of the Hamas regime’s government activity in the Gaza Strip, including the guidance of terror attacks against the State of Israel,” the statement added.

The two join a list of several senior Hamas leaders killed since the renewed offensive, including Hamas’s de facto prime minister of the Strip.

Separately, the IDF said Wednesday that it targeted the main command center of Hamas’s Daraj-Tuffah Battalion, located in Gaza City, in one of its overnight airstrikes.

The command center targeted overnight had been used by Hamas to plan numerous attacks against Israel and troops, the IDF said.

Europe decries fresh fighting

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer said Wednesday that he was “deeply concerned about the resumption of Israeli military action in Gaza.”

“The images of parents carrying their children, young children to hospitals… are truly shocking,” Starmer told parliament.

Germany’s Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said that the renewed airstrikes “are shattering the tangible hopes of so many Israelis and Palestinians of an end to suffering on all sides.”

Speaking before starting a trip to Lebanon, she called on “all sides” in the conflict to “show restraint, respect humanitarian law, and return to talks.”

“The lives of dozens of hostages, including Germans… (and) of many thousands of Palestinians” depend on peace, she said.

“The resumption of hostilities also puts at risk the positive efforts of Arab states who want to chart a peaceful path for Gaza, free from Hamas,” Baerbock added.

Germany’s top diplomat said she was appealing “in particular to the USA to use its regional influence… now, because the security of the wider Middle East is affected by this.”

She also warned that there was “a serious risk of wider regional escalation” at a time when “the situation in Lebanon has stabilized and there have been steps towards settling the conflict at the Israeli-Lebanese border.”

European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said she told Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar that the renewed campaign in Gaza is “unacceptable.” Kallas told reporters in Brussels she was referring specifically to “the loss of civilian lives.”

Kallas said she will travel to Egypt on Sunday to discuss the situation with the “Arab Quint” — Egypt, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE — adding there was a need to increase diplomatic pressure on Israel.

According to Israel’s readout of Tuesday’s phone call, Sa’ar told Kallas that Israel “has no choice” but to renew military operations in the Gaza Strip, stressing that while Israel has endorsed proposals offered by US President Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff that would maintain the ceasefire, “Hamas has rejected them twice.”

Sa’ar also emphasized to Kallas that the IDF is operating “solely against Hamas and terrorist targets while acting to minimize harm to the civilian population.”

The conversation came the same day Kallas released a joint statement with EU commissioners saying, “The EU deplores the breakdown of the ceasefire in Gaza and the deaths of civilians, including children, in Israeli airstrikes,” calling on Israel to end the campaign and for Hamas to release all the hostages.

“The EU believes that the resumption of negotiations is the only way forward,” the statement continued.

President Emmanuel Macron said Wednesday alongside Jordan’s King Abdullah II in Paris that the resumption of strikes was a major step in the wrong direction.

“It’s dramatic for the Palestinians of Gaza, who are again plunged into the terror of bombardment, and dramatic for the [Israeli] hostages and their families who live in the nightmare of uncertainty.”

Macron slammed Hamas, saying the “axis of resistance is today an illusion,” but also warned Israel that there could be “no Israeli military solution in Gaza.”

Abdullah called the strikes “an extremely dangerous step that adds further devastation to an already dire humanitarian situation.”

“The international community must act immediately and collectively push for restoring the ceasefire and the implementation of its phases,” he said. “Israel’s attacks and its blockade of aid, water, and electricity to Gaza are escalatory measures that risk the lives of a severely vulnerable population.”

Much of Gaza now lies in ruins after 15 months of fighting, which erupted on October 7, 2023, when thousands of Hamas-led gunmen attacked Israeli communities near the Gaza Strip, killing some 1,200 people and abducting 251 hostages into Gaza.

The Israeli campaign in response has killed more than 48,000 people, according to unverified numbers from Hamas health authorities, and destroyed much of the housing and infrastructure in the enclave, including the hospital system. Israel says it had killed some 20,000 combatants in battle as of January 2025, and another 1,600 terrorists inside Israel on October 7.