Hundreds of thousands of Gazans sought shelter as Israeli forces advanced into the ruins of the city of Rafah.

It is the biggest such order since Israel resumed its offensive in the Palestinian territory earlier this month.

Hundreds of thousands of fleeing Gazans sought shelter on Thursday (April 3) in one of the biggest mass displacements of the war, as Israeli forces advanced into the ruins of the city of Rafah, part of a newly announced "security zone" they intend to seize. Olivia Zollino reports.

The Israeli military has intensified strikes on parts of Gaza after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged that the country’s forces would be “switching gears” in the territory, dividing and seizing more parts of the strip.

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel’s military operation in the Gaza Strip is expanding to seize “large areas,” the defense minister said, while officials at hospitals inside the Palestinian territory said that Israeli strikes overnight and into Wednesday had killed more than 40 people, nearly a dozen of them children.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday that Israel is establishing a new security corridor across the Gaza Strip to pressure Hamas, suggesting it would cut off the southern city of Rafah, which Israel has ordered evacuated, from the rest of the Palestinian territory.

The United Nations said Israeli forces killed the people as they were trying to aid injured civilians, then buried them in a mass grave. Israel said nine of the 15 dead were Palestinian militants.

Gaza’s Health Ministry says an Israeli airstrike has killed at least 27 Palestinians sheltering at a school in northern Gaza and wounded 70 more.