Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel’s military is “switching gears” in Gaza, dividing and seizing more parts of the strip, a move experts say could mean Israel establishing deeper, more long-term control over the territory.

The announcement came after Netanyahu’s defense minister said that Israel would seize large areas of Gaza and add them to its so-called security zones.

Israel is “carving up” the Gaza Strip in a bid to pressure Hamas into freeing hostages and will establish a new corridor, parallel to the Egyptian border, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said with the army escalating ground operations in the south.

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.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says Israel is establishing a new security corridor across the Gaza Strip to pressure Hamas.

Hundreds of thousands of fleeing Gazans sought shelter on Thursday 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.

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.