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World Middle East
Israel launches first ground offensive since Gaza ceasefire collapse, partially recapturing key area
Mick Krever
By Mick Krever, Lauren Izso and Christian Edwards, CNN
3 minute read
Updated 1:06 PM EDT, Wed March 19, 2025
Israeli tanks were seen positioned near the Israel-Gaza border on Tuesday.
Israeli tanks were seen positioned near the Israel-Gaza border on Tuesday. Amir Cohen/Reuters
CNN
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The Israeli military said Wednesday that it had launched “targeted ground activities” in Gaza, partially recapturing a key area in the territory, a day after launching an aerial bombardment of the Strip that shattered the two-month-old ceasefire with Hamas.
The operation followed Israel’s renewed bombardment of Gaza the day before, shattering the fragile ceasefire with Hamas. Israel accused Hamas of “repeatedly” refusing to release hostages and rejecting offers from mediators. Hamas, in turn, blamed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of unilaterally upending the truce and putting hostages “at risk of an unknown fate.”
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said Wednesday that its troops “began targeted ground activities in the central and southern Gaza Strip in order to expand the security zone and to create a partial buffer between northern and southern Gaza.”
“As part of the ground activities, the troops expanded their control further to the center of the Netzarim Corridor,” the military said.
Under January’s ceasefire deal, Israel had withdrawn from the Netzarim Corridor, a key strip of land that splits Gaza in half, dividing the central Gaza City and northern Gaza from the southern parts of the Strip that borders Egypt.
A Palestinian woman sits on the rubble of her house, destroyed in an Israeli strike, in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza on Tuesday.
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Although Israel withdrew from the corridor, foreign military contractors have continued to man checkpoints between northern and southern Gaza.
After the truce became effective, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians filed through the corridor by foot, car and in some cases by donkeys, with many of them returning to homes that had been destroyed after 15 months of Israeli bombardment.
The renewed ground offensive came after Israel pounded Gaza with airstrikes overnight into Tuesday, killing more than 400 people, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, in one of the war’s deadliest days.
On Wednesday, the United Nations said one of their aid workers was killed by an “explosive ordnance” at the UN guesthouse in central Gaza, and five others were injured.
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