Israel’s defence minister has ordered the military to seize more territory in Gaza and warned that parts of the enclave could be annexed if Hamas does not free the remaining Israeli hostages, according to reporting by The Guardian on March 21, 2025.
The warning came as the Israel Defense Forces intensified a new offensive that had resumed days earlier, ending the fragile calm that had held since mid-January. The report described heavy overnight strikes across Gaza and new evacuation orders in the north of the strip, deepening displacement in an already devastated territory.
Israel Katz said he had instructed the army to take additional ground and argued that every refusal by Hamas would cost the group more territory. He also threatened to expand buffer zones and to impose what he described as a permanent Israeli occupation in parts of Gaza if the hostages were not released. The report said 59 Israeli hostages were still being held.
The military offensive was paired with sharp pressure on Palestinian civilians. The IDF said it had targeted what it described as Hamas military sites and vessels intended for use in attacks, while the UN estimated that 124,000 people had been displaced in Gaza since Tuesday. Gaza’s civil defence agency said 504 people had been killed since bombardment resumed, making the renewed campaign one of the deadliest bursts of the war since the truce collapsed.
The broader ceasefire framework was already under strain. According to the report, Israel had refused to begin talks on the second phase of the January ceasefire, which would have been designed to bring back all hostages, withdraw Israeli forces and move toward a permanent end to hostilities. Instead, Israel backed a different proposal associated with US envoy Steve Witkoff, involving a shorter truce and the release of the remaining hostages without a parallel commitment to free more Palestinian prisoners.
The report also placed the Gaza escalation inside a wider political crisis in Israel. Thousands of protesters had taken to the streets in recent days, accusing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of undermining democracy and pursuing the war without sufficient concern for the hostages. On the same day, the Israeli supreme court temporarily halted the dismissal of Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar.
The confrontation around Gaza is now defined by three overlapping pressures: military escalation, hostage negotiations and domestic political turmoil in Israel. Katz’s warning signalled that the territorial cost of Hamas’s refusal to release hostages could rise further, even as the humanitarian toll in Gaza continued to mount.
