DEIR AL-BALAH: Israel said Wednesday it launched a “limited ground operation” in northern Gaza to retake part of a corridor that bisects the territory, and the country's defense minister warned that the army plans to step up the attacks that shattered a two-month ceasefire "with an intensity that you have not seen.”
The military said it had retaken part of the Netzarim corridor, which bisects northern Gaza from the south and from where it had withdrawn as part of the ceasefire with Hamas that began in January.
Defense Minister Israel Katz warned Palestinians in Gaza that the army would again order evacuations from combat zones soon, and that its attacks against Hamas would become more fierce if dozens of hostages held for more than 17 months weren’t freed.
The move appeared to deepen a renewed Israeli offensive in Gaza, which shattered a ceasefire with Hamas.
The Gaza Health Ministry said at least 436 people, including 183 children and 94 women, have been killed since Israel launched the strikes early Tuesday. It said another 678 people have been wounded.
The military says it only strikes militants and blames civilian deaths on Hamas because it operates in densely populated areas. Gaza’s Health Ministry records do not distinguish between civilians and combatants.
The military said in a statement that as part of the new offensive, it struck dozens of militants and militant sites on Wednesday, including the command center of a Hamas battalion.
The war in Gaza, which was paused in January by an internationally-mediated ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas, has been among the deadliest conflicts ever for humanitarian workers, according to the UN.
The resumption of fighting launched by Israel early Tuesday risks plunging the region back into all-out war. It came weeks after the end of the first phase of the ceasefire, during which Israel and Hamas exchanged hostages for prisoners and were set to negotiate an extension to the truce that was meant to bring about an eventual end to the war.
But those negotiations never got off the ground. Hamas has demanded that Israel stick to the terms of the initial ceasefire deal, including a full withdrawal from Gaza and an end to the war. Israel, which has vowed to defeat Hamas, has put forward a new proposal that would extend the truce and free more hostages held by Hamas, without a commitment to end the war.

SHARG ELNIL, Sudan: In a nutrition ward at a hospital in Sudan’s war-stricken capital, gaunt mothers lie next to even thinner toddlers with wide, sunken eyes.
The patients at Alban Jadeed Hospital are in urgent need of help after nearly two years of battles that have trapped residents and cut off supplies, but doctors have to ration the therapeutic milk and other products used to treat them.
The war that erupted in April 2023 from a power struggle between Sudan’s army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has created what the United Nations calls the world’s largest and most devastating humanitarian crisis.
About half of Sudan’s population of 50 million now suffer some degree of acute hunger, and famine has taken hold in at least five areas, including several parts of North Darfur State in western Sudan.
The real situation could be worse, since fighting has prevented proper data collection in many areas, medics and aid staff say.
In Sudan’s greater capital, where the cities of Khartoum, Omdurman and Bahri are divided by the Nile, the warring factions have prevented deliveries of aid and commercial supplies, pushing the prices of goods beyond most people’s reach.
Alban Jadeed Hospital, in Bahri’s Sharg Elnil district, received more than 14,000 children under five years old suffering from severe acute malnutrition last year, and another 12,000 with a more mild form, said Azza Babiker, head of the therapeutic nutrition department.
Only 600 of the children tested were a normal weight, she said.
The supply of therapeutic formula milk via UN children’s agency UNICEF and medical aid agency MSF is insufficient, Babiker said, as RSF soldiers twice stole the supplies.
Both sides deny impeding aid deliveries.
The sharp reduction of USAID funding is expected to make things worse, hitting the budgets of aid agencies that provide crucial nutritional supplies as well as community kitchens relied upon by many, aid workers say.
The army recently captured Sharg Elnil from the RSF, as part of recent gains it has made across the capital.
Fruit and vegetables have become extremely scarce. “Aside from the difficulty of getting these products in, not all families can afford to buy them,” Babiker said.
Many mothers are unable to produce milk, often due to trauma resulting from RSF attacks, or their own malnutrition, said Raneen Adel, a doctor at Alban Jadeed.
“There are cases who come in dehydrated ... because for example the RSF entered the house and the mother was frightened so she stopped producing breast milk, or she was beaten,” she said.
The RSF did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
A lack of nutrition and sanitation has led to cases of blood poisoning and other illnesses, but the hospital has also run out of antibiotics.
“We had to tell the patients’ companions to get (the drugs) from outside, but they can’t afford to buy them,” Adel said.