Israel expands ground operations in Gaza, threatens to occupy parts of strip

Israeli ground troops returned to Gaza after a wave of deadly airstrikes earlier this week shattered a cease-fire that held for almost two months and tipped the territory back toward full-scale war. The ground operations are the latest in a series of escalatory steps Israel has rolled out in recent weeks as talks to extend the cease-fire deal faltered.

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said on Friday he had instructed the military to seize parts of the strip and evacuate their populations, a day after Israeli troops took back control of much of a key corridor dividing the enclave’s north and south. “As long as Hamas continues its refusal, it will lose more and more land that will be added to Israel," Katz said.

Katz said Hamas’s refusal to return all the hostages could lead to “permanent Israeli control of the territory," and suggested that parts of the enclave could be occupied. He pledged continued assaults by air, land and sea.

The Israeli military said late Thursday that its troops were active in the Shaboura area of Rafah, in southern Gaza, where they dismantled “terrorist infrastructure," but didn’t provide more details about the operation. It said troops were also active in the north, where they worked to dismantle infrastructure at a health facility it said was used by Hamas.

The military said Hamas used the health facility, known as the Turkish hospital, as a command-and-control center to direct and carry out attacks against Israel. Airstrikes also continued throughout the strip, the military said.

Israeli officials have pledged to ratchet up pressure on the U.S.-designated terrorist group to return 59 hostages that remain inside Gaza, as many as 24 of whom the government believes may still be alive. Among them are one American-Israeli, Edan Alexander, and the bodies of four other U.S. citizens who died in Hamas captivity. Freeing Alexander is a priority for the Trump administration.

As part of its efforts to pressure Hamas, Israel halted the entry of humanitarian aid into the strip, where almost all of its population of roughly two million people have been displaced, in early March. A week later, it cut off its remaining electricity supply to the enclave, though an Israel official said that by then its residents were mostly using generators and solar panels.

The cease-fire that began on Jan. 19 brought a fragile pause to the war, which began more than 17 months ago. The conflict was triggered by the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, when about 1,200 people were killed and some 250 others were taken hostage inside Gaza.

The cease-fire was meant to be carried out in phases, the first of which saw the return of 33 Israeli hostages in exchange for the release of more than 1,700 Palestinians who were held in Israeli prisons. That phase concluded in early March, but negotiations meant to usher in phase two—geared toward the release of all remaining hostages and a permanent end to the war—never began.

Negotiators have shuttled back and forth between the Qatari capital, Doha, and Cairo for weeks to try to move talks forward without success. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said earlier this week that his team had accepted a proposal put forth by U.S. mediators, but Hamas refused. Netanyahu blamed the group for endangering Palestinian civilians.

Hamas blamed Israel for endangering the lives of the remaining hostages.

Netanyahu’s government has come under increasing pressure to secure their return, particularly after some of those freed under the cease-fire emerged emaciated, injured and traumatized. Recent polling shows public support for the war effort is waning and a large majority would end the war to secure the release of the hostages.

Gaza’s health ministry said on Thursday that Israeli military operations killed more than 500 people, many of them children, since the strikes began on Tuesday. The figures don’t specify how many were combatants.

Write to Feliz Solomon at feliz.solomon@wsj.com