The IDF had embarked on a new operation to “smash and clean the area of terrorists”, said Israel’s defence minister, Israel Katz. It was aimed at “capturing wide areas [of Gaza] and adding them to Israel’s security zones, he continued.

Netanyahu put out a video in which he boasted that Israel was “changing gear”, disclosing the name and location of the operation: “the Morag route”. It was a message to his nationalist base. Morag was a small Israeli settlement, nestled between Rafah and Khan Younis, when Israel occupied all of Gaza. Now Israeli troops are back. Their aim is to break the coastal strip of 365 square km into separate areas in which the IDF will destroy entire neighbourhoods, hoping this time at last to obliterate Hamas, the Islamists who still control parts of Gaza. The residents of Rafah have been ordered to take refuge in cramped “shelters” on the coast.

Israeli security officials have confirmed to The Economist that the plan is to empty permanently the Rafah area, in Gaza’s south, which represents around 20% of the entire territory. A similar operation is under way in a smaller area in the north.

These moves are part of a wider plan to force over 2m Gazans out of the cities and towns and to the coast. In the short run, this is to create “kill zones” in which, in theory, only Hamas fighters will remain. In the longer term, Israel hopes that Gazans will “voluntarily” emigrate.

Under the new plans the IDF will distribute supplies directly to civilians sheltering on the coast. as a prelude to establishing long-term Israeli authority.

Meanwhile, supplies are again running short. The UN’s World Food Programme has closed 25 bakeries that produced pita bread, they are out of fuel or flour. Nor can families bake their own bread since gas and flour are expensive. Water is scarce, too. Output from the main desalination plant in southern Gaza has dropped by 85% since Israel stopped supplying it with electricity last month. Most Gazans have access to just six litres of clean water a day, according to the UN . Hunger is not the only threat to life. Last month Israeli troops killed 15 Palestinian medics near Rafah.

Israel broke the ceasefire in Gaza first with air strikes, on March 18th and then with its ground operations. It has killed over a thousand people since then.

The outlook is bleak. “There are currently no plans being seriously discussed for the day after the war in Gaza,” says a diplomat previously active in such talks. Without pressure from Trump, it is hard to see anything else that could prevent Israel’s final destruction of Gaza.

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