Israel enters first stage of planned assault on Gaza City

Like Aviv – Israel entered the first stages of its planned assault on Gaza City on Wednesday after approving a plan to take over the city which includes 60,000 reservists for its extended military operation in the besieged Palestinian enclave.

“We started the preliminary actions and the initial stages of the Gaza City offensive, and now the ASAhal forces occupy positions on the outskirts of Gaza City,” the Israeli military spokesman Effie Defrin said on Wednesday.

He added: “We will intensify strikes on Hamas in the city of Gaza, the political and military bastion of the terrorist organization.”

Defrin also said that to “minimize civilians’ damage”, the FDI will notify citizens to allow them to evacuate.

“We continue to allow humanitarian aid to the residents of the band and we even expand it-with additional distribution points of central aid,” he said.

The American ally seemed to advance Wednesday with a new phase of his war despite the international opposition-and faced with a renewed push for a cease-fire with Hamas.

Defense Minister Israel Katz authorized the plans for the new major operation, a spokesman for the ministry confirmed at NBC News. He will also see 20,000 additional reservists extending their service, said the Israeli army.

The assault should force thousands of Palestinians in northern Gaza south of the band, which suffers from a hunger crisis in the intensification of the military offensive of Israel and aid restrictions.

In a statement on Wednesday evening, the Prime Minister’s office said that “before the operation of the operation in Gaza City, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the schedules – to take control of the last terrorist bastions and the defeat of Hamas – are shortened.”

“The Prime Minister expresses his great appreciation for the combatants of reservists who were mobilized and their families, and all the soldiers of the FDI,” added the press release. “Together we will win.”

Hamas has not issued an immediate response to the announcement on Israeli troops which occupy positions outside Gaza City.

Dozens of people have been killed by famine in recent weeks, including dozens of children, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in the enclave.

In addition to the world assembly, radical demonstrations have more and more dominated its own streets, the growing number of Israelis demanding the end of its offensive in the enclave.

Hundreds of thousands organized furious demonstrations last weekend alongside a general strike, partly fueled by the fear that the planned assault of Gaza City will put the life of the remaining hostages in danger.

Meanwhile, Israel also gave the final approval of a draft regulation widely disputed in occupied West Bank which would effectively divide the territory into two. Palestinians and rights defense groups have warned that the decision could destroy the plans for a future Palestinian state.

The ceasefire speaks uncertain

Katz, who replaced Yoav Gallant as Minister of Defense last year, organized a discussion on Tuesday to approve “strike plans in Gaza” with the Chief of Staff of the Israeli Defense Forces, Lieutenant-General Eyal Zamir and other senior defense officials, said the Ministry of Defense.

The announcement of the enlarged military operation comes after Israel seemed to raise the shoulders of Hamas to the last proposal of the Arab mediators for a cease-fire contract in Gaza which would release the hostages that would remain held in the enclave.

Egyptian Minister for Foreign Affairs, Badr Abdeatty, told NBC News on Tuesday that the agreement was based on a proposal from President Donald Trump’s envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, for a 60-day ceasefire, during which some of the 50 remaining hostages, both alive, would be released with plans to negotiate sustainable drying.

“The ball is now at the court of Israel,” he said, adding: “We would like a positive response from them as soon as possible in order to face the disastrous situation in Gaza, in particular famine and murder of civilians.”

Asked about development, a spokesperson for the office of the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu referred NBC news to a statement that the Israeli chief suggested on Monday that he was determined to move forward with the plan to assume the full control of Gaza City and to note that Hamas seemed to be “under immense pressure”.

When they were asked if they could confirm information that Israel would provide an answer to international mediators of the proposal by Friday, the spokesman said “no” and did not provide additional clarification.

‘There is no safe place’

New satellite images suggest that a number of people have already started to flee the Gaza City region in recent days before Israel’s advance, with the country’s plan to push civilians living in the region in the south of the enclave condemned by the rights defense groups.

The imagery captured on August 16 shows that the sites just south of Gaza City are apparently sterile, having been filled with what seems to be tent camps a few days earlier, on August 9.

Mohammed Abu Sharia, father of three, said that he and his family had been forced to leave their house in Gaza City – just a few months after the return of another series of trips due to Israel’s offensive.

“Thank goodness, we found our house almost intact and habitable, despite the theft of all its contents and the lack of doors or windows,” said Abu Sharia, 48, who led a distribution company on Wednesday before the start of the Israeli assault.

The family has been able to live at home in the past six months – but in the middle of the plan of Israel to take control of Gaza City, they now sought a semblance of refuge in the west of Gaza in an enclave where nowhere is considered to be safe.

“There is no safe place, neither in the North nor in the South,” said Sharia Abu. “My concern is to save the life of the family, because we suffer from food shortages and from the absence of all personal effects with us.”

“Additional displacement and an intensification of hostilities are likely to aggravate an already catastrophic situation,” said the International Committee of the Red Cross in a statement.

“With more than 80% Gaza already affected by evacuation orders, it is unimaginable that civilians can be forced to move in an even smaller area,” he said.

Israel launched its offensive in Gaza following the attacks led by Hamas on October 7, 2023, in which some 1,200 people were killed and around 250 hostages, marking a major escalation in a conflict of decades.

Since then, more than 62,000 people have been killed in Gaza, including thousands of children, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in the Enclave, a large part of the destroyed territory.