Israel PM Benjamin Netanyahu announces building new security corridor across Gaza to...

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday that Israel is establishing a new security corridor across the Gaza Strip to pressure Hamas, suggesting it would cut off the southern city of Rafah, which Israel has ordered evacuated, from the rest of the Palestinian territory. The announcement came after Netanyahu’s defense minister said Israel would seize large areas of Gaza and add them to its so-called security zones.  

A wave of Israeli strikes overnight into Wednesday, meanwhile, killed more than 40 Palestinians, including several women and children, according to Palestinian health officials. One Israeli strike killed at least 17 people in a United Nations building, previously a clinic, that had been converted into a shelter for more than 700 displaced people. Israel said it struck Hamas militants in a “command and control center.”  

Israel has vowed to escalate the nearly 18-month war with Hamas until the militant group returns dozens of remaining hostages, disarms and leaves the territory. Israel ended a ceasefire in March and has cut off all food, fuel and humanitarian aid to Gaza — a tactic that rights groups say is a war crime. 

PM says “increasing pressure” on Hamas 

Netanyahu says Israel is establishing a new security corridor across Gaza. Netanyahu described it as the Morag corridor, using the name of a Jewish settlement that once stood between Rafah and Khan Younis. That suggests the military-controlled corridor would run between the two cities in southern Gaza.  “We are increasing the pressure step by step, so that they will give us our hostages. And the more they do not give, the more the pressure will increase until they do,” Netanyahu said in a statement issued Wednesday. 

Last month, the Israeli military retook control of the Netzarim corridor, which bisects northern Gaza from the south. Israeli forces had withdrawn from the corridor as part of the ceasefire. 

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by DNA staff and is published from AP)