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DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel is establishing a new security corridor across Gaza. In a statement issued Wednesday, he described it as the Morag corridor, using the name of a Jewish settlement that once stood between Rafah and Khan Younis, suggesting it would run between the two southern cities.
The announcement came on the same day that Mr. Netanyahu was scheduled to arrive in Hungary to meet with its nationalist prime minister despite an international arrest warrant for the Israeli leader over the war in the Gaza Strip.
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 imposed a monthlong halt to all imports of food, fuel and humanitarian aid.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said in a statement that the offensive is now aimed at “seizing large areas that will be added to the security zones,” without elaborating. Israel controls a buffer zone along Gaza’s entire border and recently ordered the full evacuation of the southern city of Rafah.
In northern Gaza, an Israeli airstrike hit a U.N. building in the built-up Jabaliya refugee camp, killing 15 people, including nine children and two women, according to the Indonesian Hospital. The Israeli military said it struck Hamas militants in a command and control center.
More than 60% of Gaza is now considered a “no-go” zone because of Israeli evacuation orders, according to Olga Cherevko, a spokesperson for the U.N. humanitarian aid office. Hundreds of thousands people are living in squalid tent camps along the coast or in the ruins of their destroyed homes.
PHOTOS: Netanyahu says Israel will establish a new security corridor across Gaza
Mr. Netanyahu said Sunday that Israel plans to maintain overall security control of Gaza after the war and implement President Trump’s proposal to resettle much of its population elsewhere through what the Israeli leader referred to as “voluntary emigration.”
Palestinians have rejected the plan, viewing it as expulsion from their homeland after Israel’s offensive left much of it uninhabitable, and human rights experts say implementing the plan would likely violate international law.
Hamas has said it will only release the remaining 59 hostages — 24 of whom are believed to be alive — in exchange for the release of more Palestinian prisoners, a lasting ceasefire and an Israeli pullout.
The war began when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking 251 hostages, most of whom have since been released in ceasefire agreements and other deals. Israel rescued eight living hostages and has recovered dozens of bodies.
Israel’s offensive has killed more than 50,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, while Israel says it has killed around 20,000 militants.
The war has left vast areas of Gaza in ruins and at its height displaced around 90% of the population.
Mr. Netanyahu ’s four-day visit to Budapest is a sign of both his close relationship with Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and the latter’s growing hostility toward international institutions like the International Criminal Court, of which Hungary is a member.
Mr. Orbán, a conservative populist and close Netanyahu ally, has vowed to disregard the ICC warrant, accusing the world’s top war crimes court based in The Hague, Netherlands, of “interfering in an ongoing conflict for political purposes.”
Members of Mr. Orbán’s government have suggested that Hungary, which became a signatory to the court in 2001, could withdraw.
The ICC, the world’s only permanent global tribunal for war crimes and genocide, issued the arrest warrant in November for Mr. Netanyahu as well as for his former defense minister and Hamas’ military chief, accusing them of crimes against humanity.
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