The Israel Defense Forces said Friday morning that its ground troops had begun operating in the Shejaiya area of the northern Gaza Strip.

Authorities in Hamas-ruled Gaza accuse Israeli forces of a "heinous massacre" with a strike on a school they say killed almost 30 people, many of them children.

At least 73 people were killed during Israeli attacks in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, according to the Hamas-controlled health authority, as Israel launched a major expansion of military operations. A recent ceasefire has become a distant memory for Palestinians in the coastal enclave after Israel announced plans to establish another security corridor dividing the strip and the army said it had encircled part of the southern Gazan city of Rafah.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel had seized a corridor of land that would split one of Gaza’s largest cities from the rest of the enclave.

Israel now says it is expanding its offensive. In a video statement released on April 2, Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said the Israeli military had “shifted gears” in the Gaza Strip, “seizing territory,

In pressing forward with its assault on the territory, Israel hopes to squeeze Hamas into releasing the remaining hostages. But other objectives have emerged.

A top official said “large areas” of the enclave would be seized, suggesting that Israel intended to hold on to more territory.

Demanding an end to the war, hundreds pressed the militants to relinquish control of the enclave, a rare demonstration against a group that has suppressed dissent with violence.

Demonstrations against Hamas erupted on March 25 in the northern Gaza Strip and spread since then to other parts of the territory. Three common themes can be easily detected in the demands of the demonstrators: a cry for help,

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday that the military was "dissecting" the Gaza Strip and seizing territory to pressure Hamas into freeing hostages still held in the enclave.