Israel Renews Ground Operations in Gaza

The immediate goal is to retake the Netzarim Corridor, which bisects the war-torn territory.

Israeli soldiers stand on a tank as it takes position in front of the northern Gaza Strip as seen from the Israeli side of the border in the Southern District of Israel, on March 18, 2025. Amir Levy/Getty Images

Israel is launching a new ground operation into Gaza and aims to seize a corridor that runs through the middle of the territory.

Israeli defense leaders announced on March 19 that they were pursuing a mission to retake the Netzarim Corridor, which stretches just south of Gaza City and bisects the Gaza Strip into northern and southern regions.

Defense Minister Israel Katz vowed to unleash the operation “with an intensity that you have not seen” and warned Palestinians in the region that the army would soon again order evacuations from combat zones.

Israeli forces occupied the Netzarim Corridor from 2023 to early 2025 but evacuated it as part of the cease-fire deal brokered in January with the Hamas terrorist group, which governs Gaza.

Jerusalem has since pulled out of that agreement, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying that Israel could not accept Hamas’s refusal to release additional hostages taken during the terror attacks of Oct. 7, 2023.

Hamas spent several weeks calling for talks on the cease-fire agreement’s second phase, which was conceived as including the release of the remaining living hostages in exchange for more Palestinian prisoners, a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, and a lasting cease-fire.

Under the first phase, which ran from Jan. 19 to March 1, Hamas released 25 Israeli hostages and the bodies of eight others in return for nearly 1,800 Palestinian prisoners, including senior militants serving life sentences for deadly attacks.

Hamas still holds 59 hostages in Gaza, of which 24 are believed to be alive.

Although each side has accused the other of violating the cease-fire, Israeli leadership made that issue moot by reinitiating airstrikes throughout Gaza on March 18.

Israel’s defense ministry said that it would use the corridor to create a partial buffer zone between the north and the south of Gaza, but Israel’s long-term objective remains unclear. No reports of Hamas rocket fire or other attacks against Israel have been reported since the new offensive began.

The Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry said that the latest Israeli strikes have killed about 436 people, most of whom it claims were women and children.

The Israel Defense Forces maintain that only Hamas militants have been targeted and that Hamas members are to blame for hiding among groups of civilians. Gaza’s health ministry casualty records do not distinguish between civilians and combatants.

The Israeli military said in a statement that as part of the new offensive, it struck dozens of militants and militant sites on March 19, including the command center of a Hamas battalion.

The renewed violence has been condemned by Egypt, France, Germany, and Qatar, all of which recently supported a plan drafted by Egypt and adopted by several Arab nations. The proposal would seek $53 billion to rebuild Gaza and improve living conditions in an area devastated by war over the past year and a half.

The plan would mandate that Hamas no longer rules Gaza or presents a threat to Israel. It would also create an administrative committee of independent Palestinian professionals to oversee Gaza after the end of the war.

President Donald Trump, meanwhile, suggested in early February that the United States should take over Gaza and turn the territory into a tourist destination that could be a “Middle East Riviera.”

Dorothy Shea, acting U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said on March 18 that blame for the resumption of hostilities “lies solely with Hamas.”

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.