Israel’s defense minister has announced plans to “seize large areas” of the Gaza Strip, as the country expands its aerial and ground operations in the besieged Palestinian territory.

Israeli Minister of Defense Israel Katz stated that troops would advance to clear areas of terrorists and infrastructure and to seize significant territory, which would be incorporated into Israel’s security zones.

Related: Israel announces plan to seize ‘large areas’ in Gaza – latest updates

Katz also urged Palestinian civilians to leave areas where fighting has reemerged following the collapse of the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas last month, calling on them to “act now to overthrow Hamas and return all the hostages.”

Following intense airstrikes on Khan Younis and Rafah in southern Gaza, which hospital officials reported had resulted in the deaths of at least 21 people, the minister’s announcement came. The bodies of five women—one of them pregnant—and two children were brought to Nasser hospital on Wednesday morning, as well as three men from the same family.

Early on Wednesday, there were reports of at least two airstrikes on Gaza City and IDF troop movement in the Rafah area. The IDF had deployed an additional division to southern Gaza earlier in the day.

The Israeli military issued widespread evacuation orders last week for people in Rafah and adjacent lands stretching northward to Khan Younis to relocate to al-Mawasi, an area on the shore designated by Israel as a humanitarian zone, though it has been repeatedly bombed.

The extent of the land that Israel intends to capture remains unclear, but according to the Israeli human rights group Gisha, the IDF has seized buffer zones along Gaza’s edges totaling 62 sq km, or 17% of the strip, since the war commenced in October 2023.

Israel resumed extensive bombing across Gaza on 18 March and redeployed ground troops, ending an almost two-month-long ceasefire and the exchange of Israeli hostages and Palestinians held in Israeli jails.

The original truce terms required the parties to negotiate the implementation of further phases of the deal during the initial 42-day period, but the Israeli government continually postponed the talks.

Since the truce ended, more than 140,000 people have been displaced, with over 90% of the strip’s 2.3 million population fleeing their homes during the conflict, many of them multiple times, according to a 23 March UN estimate.

IDF airstrikes have claimed the lives of hundreds of people, and Israel has also severed humanitarian aid, food, and fuel supplies to the strip to coercively pressure Hamas.

Negotiations led by Qatari and Egyptian mediators aimed at resuming talks for war termination have yet to yield a breakthrough. The renewed combat in Gaza has ignited protests in Israel against the government by supporters of the remaining hostages and their families.

The conflict in the Gaza Strip, the deadliest between Israel and the Palestinians in over 70 years of fighting, was initiated by a 7 October 2023 Hamas attack on southern Israel, with Israel reporting 1,200 fatalities, mostly civilians, and another 250 taken hostage.

According to the health ministry of the Gaza Strip, at least 50,357 people, most of them civilians, have been killed in Israel’s retaliatory military campaign.