Israel expands ground offensive in Gaza

The Israeli military announced the launch of a new ground offensive in Gaza City on Friday to expand the security zone it has established in the Palestinian territory.

Israel has pushed since the collapse of a short-lived truce in the war with Hamas to seize territory in Gaza in what it has called a strategy to force the militants to free hostages still in captivity.

Simultaneously, it has escalated attacks on Lebanon and Syria, with a strike in the south Lebanese city of Sidon killing a Hamas commander along with his adult son and daughter, according to the military.

In Gaza City, the Israeli military said ground troops had begun conducting operations in the Shejaiya area "in order to expand the security zone".

Defense Minister Israel Katz had said on Wednesday that Israel would bolster its military presence inside the Gaza Strip to "destroy and clear the area of terrorists and terrorist infrastructure".

The operation would "seize large areas that will be incorporated into Israeli security zones", he said, without specifying how much territory.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the army was dividing Gaza and "seizing territory" to force Hamas to free the remaining Israeli hostages seized in the militant group's October 2023 attack on Israel which sparked the Gaza war.

On Thursday, Gaza's civil defense agency said at least 31 people, including children, were killed in an Israeli strike on a school serving as a shelter for displaced Palestinians.

Agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP that women and children were among the dead, while six people were still unaccounted for in the strike on Dar al-Arqam School in the Al-Tuffah neighborhood, northeast of Gaza City.

"One of the missing was a pregnant woman who was expecting twins," he said.

The Israeli military said it had struck a "Hamas command and control centre in the area of Gaza City".

It was unclear whether it was the same attack that hit the school.

The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said on Thursday that 1,163 people have been killed in the Palestinian territory since Israel resumed large-scale strikes on March 18, bringing the overall death toll since the war began to 50,523.