Israel Kills Dozens in New Gaza Attacks
as 500,000 Forcibly Displaced
Alastair McCready / Al Jazeera Live

(April 17 2025) — Medical sources told Al Jazeera that at least 35 people have been killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza since early on Wednesday, and more devastating strikes have been reported in recent hours.

The United Nations said an estimated 500,000 people have been “newly displaced or uprooted once more” in Gaza since Israel broke the ceasefire with Hamas on March 18.

Israel’s Defence Minister Israel Katz said his country’s “policy is clear” and preventing all humanitarian aid from entering Gaza is a “tool” to pressure Hamas.

Gaza’s Health Ministry says at least 51,025 Palestinians have been confirmed dead and 116,432 wounded in Israel’s war on Gaza since it began 18 months ago.

The Gaza Government Media Office updated its death toll to more than 61,700, saying thousands of people missing under the rubble are presumed dead. At least 1,139 people were killed in Israel during the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, attacks, and more than 200 were taken captive.

Israeli ‘Buffer Zone’ in Gaza a Guise
for ‘Massive’ Ethnic Cleansing

The Israeli military veterans’ activist group Breaking the Silence has said that Israel’s so-called “buffer zone” in Gaza was nothing more than “ethnic cleansing on a massive scale”.

Noting that the zone established by the Israeli military now encompasses some 36 percent of the entire territory of the Gaza Strip, Breaking the Silence said the zone is not about security but “control”.

“Displacement and destruction don’t create security,” the group said.

“Making it permanent means one thing: ethnic cleansing on a massive scale”.