The ground operation against the so-called Netzarim corridor, which separates the northern and southern parts of the Gaza Strip, began on Wednesday afternoon. Israel's military (IDF) said in a statement that the operation would be "limited".
"In recent days, IDF forces have focused on activities in central and southern Gaza to expand a security zone and create a partial buffer zone," IDF wrote on social media.
The corridor has functioned as a seven-kilometer-long militarized zone from Israel in the east to the Mediterranean in the west, dividing Gaza into two parts.
IDF also said that operations "continue" against terrorist organizations.
UN employee killed
Israel is also strengthening its demand that the influence of the terrorist-stamped Hamas in Gaza must cease.
"Residents of Gaza, this is the final warning. Follow the advice of the US President. Return all hostages and remove Hamas," urged Israel's Defense Minister Israel Katz.
The Hamas-controlled civil defense authority updated the death toll on Wednesday evening since Israel resumed attacks on the area: 470 people have been killed in the attacks since they began on Tuesday, according to the authority's spokesperson Mahmud Bassal. Among the dead are 14 members of the same family in Beit Lahia in northern Gaza.
UN employee killed
According to the UN, an employee of the UN agency Unops was killed when its headquarters was attacked from the air. Five people were injured in the attack.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres wants the attack on the office to be investigated. The employee who was killed was from Bulgaria, confirms the country's foreign ministry.
The intensity of Israel's attacks during the night to Wednesday seems to have been less than the previous day, when the ceasefire in the war collapsed.
Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has previously warned that the ongoing wave of attacks is "just the beginning".
The door is not closed
The ceasefire began on January 19 and was initially intended to last for six weeks. But since they failed to agree on a second, more in-depth phase, the conditions of the first phase continued to apply for a few more weeks – until Israel resumed its attacks on Gaza.
A representative of Hamas says that despite everything, they would like to hold on to the original agreement.
The Gaza war began with Hamas' large-scale attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.
Corrected: The AFP news agency is retracting its earlier report on the number of dead due to an error from Hamas.
