CAIRO/GAZA: Zionist entity troops could be seen clearing ground and building watch towers on Monday in parts of Gaza they have seized in recent days in a renewed offensive that the United Nations says has already captured or depopulated two-thirds of the enclave. The army has issued repeated evacuation warnings to hundreds of thousands Palestinians in southern, central and northern areas since it resumed operations in Gaza on March 18, forcing them into a diminishing space limited by the sea.

Zakia Sami, 60, a mother of six from Gaza City, said she could see tanks occupying the high ground as she fled her home after the army ordered the family out of the eastern suburb of Shejaia. “They have taken over the Al-Muntar hilltop where we used to go to play with our kids. Now they are stationed there and they can hit any house they want inside Shejaia,” she told Reuters via a chat app. “Gaza has always been a small place and the (Zionists) are making it smaller and smaller every day. We are being strangled with no food and with bombs falling on us.”

According to the United Nations humanitarian agency OCHA, the total area seized by the Zionist entity or placed under evacuation orders now covers 65 percent of the Gaza Strip. In Rafah alone, 140,000 people have been displaced over the past two weeks, according to the International Rescue Committee aid group. The Zionist entity announced plans last week to seize a “security zone” around the edges of the Gaza Strip, a month after a ceasefire expired. It has not said what its long-term plan is for the recaptured territory, but Palestinians fear it aims to occupy it permanently.

Residents said there were increasing signs the military was digging in for an extended stay, building watchtowers in Shejaia in the north and around the former Zionist settlement of Morag, between the cities of Khan Younis and Rafah in the south. Footage circulating on social media showed a large crane protected by machine guns and security cameras near Morag as well as earthmoving equipment at work near Shejaia.

Overnight the army issued evacuation warnings to several districts in Deir Al-Balah and Zawayda in the central Gaza Strip, areas that have sheltered hundreds of thousands. In Deir Al-Balah, residents carried a wounded man in a blanket out of the rubble of a house that had been destroyed in a Zionist entity strike. “There are still martyrs under the rubble. Our neighbors are martyrs,” said Imad Hassan, a neighbor, who blamed US President Donald Trump for encouraging Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to restart the Zionist entity’s military assault. A report issued on Monday by the rights group Breaking the Silence quoted soldiers describing demolishing buildings and farmland to create the buffer zone.

Where do we go?

“Where do we go? The question is of over two million people now. They are squeezing us,” said Tamer Al-Burai, a Gaza City businessman, sheltering in Deir Al-Balah. A ceasefire reached in January expired in March. The Zionist entity has said that its campaign in Gaza will continue until the remaining 59 hostages still held by Hamas and other militant groups are returned. Hamas says it will not free them without a deal that would bring a permanent end to the war. The Hamas-run government media office said the entity’s seizure of Rafah, a 60 square kilometer zone with a prewar population of around 300,000, showed its goal was “to empty the land of its people and erase its geographic and demographic identity”. — Reuters