The advance and a new evacuation order came not long after Palestinian health authorities said dozens of people, including children, were killed in strikes on a school turned shelter. Israel said it had targeted militants.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel’s military is “switching gears” in Gaza, dividing and seizing more parts of the strip, a move experts say could mean Israel establishing deeper, more long-term control over the territory.

Israel said it had scaled up a ground offensive in northern Gaza as part of an operation to extend so-called "security zones" that provide a protective buffer along the border with Israel.

In pressing forward with its assault on the territory, Israel hopes to squeeze Hamas into releasing the remaining hostages. But other objectives have emerged.

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz announced Wednesday a major expansion of the military’s operation in Gaza involving the seizure of large areas of land that would be “incorporated into Israel’s security zones.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that the pressure on Gaza would increase until the remaining hostages were returned to Israel. “The more they do not give (back the hostages), the more the pressure will increase until they do,” vowed the Israeli Prime Minster in a video statement released on Wednesday.

Toronto police spent $19.5 million in 2024 on policing demonstrations and "proactive engagement" with Jewish and Muslim communities amid the Israel-Gaza war, according to a new report. The report, written by Chief Myron Demkiw,

The Israeli military is conducting an investigation into an incident in Gaza in which a number of emergency and aid workers were killed, a military spokesperson said on Thursday, rejecting a description of the incident as an "execution".

As Israel orders wide new evacuations across the Gaza Strip, Palestinians say they are crushed by exhaustion and hopelessness at the prospect of fleeing once again.