In a post on his X platform page, Katz said: "Gaza will be increasingly shrunk and isolated, while more of its residents will be forced to leave combat zones."
Katz noted that "during the Passover holiday, the army took control of the Morag axis, which divides the Gaza Strip from east to west along a 12-kilometer stretch, separating the cities of Khan Yunis and Rafah, transforming the area extending between the Philadelphi axis and Morag into part of the Israeli security belt."
He continued: "The buffer zone in northern Gaza is also expanding, with hundreds of thousands of residents being forced to leave their homes, and large areas of the Strip being transformed into security zones under Israeli control."
The Israeli minister claimed that this comes "as part of a strategy aimed at pressuring Hamas and forcing it to accept a prisoner release deal."
He claimed that the escalation of military operations would continue as long as Hamas rejected Israel's conditions, alleging that "Israel's policy aims to dismantle the movement's infrastructure and reduce its area of control."
The Israeli occupation army recently issued a number of forced eviction notices in the northern areas of Beit Lahia, Beit Hanoun, and Jabalia, as well as the entire city of Rafah and parts of Khan Yunis.
On Saturday, the Israeli occupation army announced that it had completed the encirclement of Rafah and the construction of the Morag axis separating the city from Khan Yunis, marking the latest in a series of crimes in its war of extermination against the Palestinian enclave.