More than half of the Gaza Strip is no longer accessible to Palestinians as Israel's military takes over larger areas of the territory and absorbs them into what it calls security zones along all of the territory's borders.

Nowhere is this more visible than in southern Gaza, where Israel's defense minister says the military is seizing an area once home to a quarter-million people and turning it into a buffer zone. The move cuts off the Palestinian border city of Rafah — and indeed the whole of the Gaza Strip – from neighboring Egypt.

Israel says its war — which Gaza health officials say has killed nearly 51,000 Palestinians — is to pressure Hamas to release the remaining hostages among the 251 taken in the deadly Oct. 7, 2023, attack. That Hamas-led attack killed almost 1,200 people in Israel, according to Israeli authorities.

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