There were times, before Israeli airstrikes on Gaza shattered the two-month-old cease-fire on March 18, when Huda Abu Teir and her family could almost believe things might go back to normal.

After fleeing from their home to a shelter for displaced people, and then to a tent, another shelter and on to another encampment during 15 months of war — six or seven displacements in all — they had returned to their house in Abasan al-Kabira, in southeastern Gaza, where they lived with Huda’s grandparents and uncles.

Back at home a few weeks ago, Huda, 19, threw a pizza party for her cousins, said one cousin, Fatma al-Shawwaf, 20. The other girls teased Huda: Shouldn’t you be studying? Huda, who was set on becoming a nurse, always seemed to be studying. But Huda laughingly retorted that she liked having fun, too.

The day before Israeli airstrikes resumed, Huda asked her Uncle Nour, who taught technology, if he could help her go over the material for her high school exams. He promised her a study session the next evening, he said.

But around midnight, Huda’s brother Abdullah, 15, heard an explosion. “What was that?” he screamed to his father, who had no time to answer before the next blast, this time over their heads and under their feet all at once.

Subscribe to The Times to read as many articles as you like.

Israel’s defense minister announced on Wednesday an expansion of its military offensive in Gaza, including plans to seize “large areas” of the enclave, an apparent attempt to pile more pressure on Hamas as efforts to restore a shattered cease-fire falter.

The remarks, which echoed a similar threat by the minister, Israel Katz, last month, suggest that Israel intends to hold captured territory, at least temporarily, in a shift from earlier tactics. In the 15-month military campaign that preceded the January truce, Israeli forces stormed Gazan cities before withdrawing, leaving behind vast destruction but allowing Palestinian militants to regroup in the rubble.

Mr. Katz said newly captured territory would be “added to the security zones” that the military currently maintains in Gaza, which include a buffer along the enclave’s borders with Egypt and Israel, and much of a key road in the center of the enclave.

He added that the expanding operation involved “wide-scale evacuations of Gaza’s population from combat zones.”

He did not elaborate as to how much territory he hoped to capture or for how long. Since the cease-fire collapsed in late March, Israeli forces have been advancing deeper into the Gaza Strip, including in the southern city of Rafah, though they have not been sweeping through Palestinian cities as they did before the truce. Both sides have been speaking to mediators about a potential deal to restore the truce — so far without success.

It is far from clear whether either side could force the other to accept its terms for an agreement through military means. Hamas is demanding an end to the war and a full Israeli withdrawal in exchange for the release of all hostages.

Subscribe to The Times to read as many articles as you like.

Three American citizens who were sentenced to death over a failed coup attempt in the Democratic Republic of Congo have had their sentences commuted to life imprisonment, according to a spokeswoman for the Central African country’s president.

The three Americans were among 37 people condemned to death last September after taking part in a May 2024 attack on the government that was streamed live and included a gun battle near the presidential palace.

Security forces killed the coup leader, Christian Malanga, a minor opposition politician. But his son, Marcel Malanga, was arrested along with his high school friend Tyler Thompson and Benjamin Zalman-Polun, a business associate of Christian Malanga’s.

Those three men — who are all American citizens — were singled out and granted “individual clemency,” Tina Salama, the Congolese president’s spokeswoman, said in a post late Tuesday on X. There was no immediate comment from the U.S. State Department.

Congo has been trying to enlist American support against neighboring Rwanda and a rebel militia that Rwanda directs and arms, M23. Since January, M23 has torn through eastern Congo, seizing vast tracts of land and major cities. Thousands of civilians, soldiers and allied militia fighters have been killed in the rebel offensive, which has also left millions destitute.

In an interview with The New York Times in February, Congo’s president, Felix Tshisekedi, offered the United States a stake in his country’s vast mineral wealth, saying that such a deal would bring his country more security and stability. Experts agree that U.S. pressure on Rwanda could be one of the few things that might induce M23 to pull back.

Subscribe to The Times to read as many articles as you like.