The announcement by the Israel Defense Forces came as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was set to huddle with top military officials and a handful of high-ranking ministers to reportedly approve war plans, even as mediators and families of hostages pressed Jerusalem to re-engage with efforts to broker a ceasefire.
Netanyahu said Thursday evening he had "instructed to begin immediate negotiations" for the release of "all of the hostages" in Gazoo, while simultaneously working to approve the government’s plan to take over Gaza City. But his office said Israel was not sending a negotiating team to mediating countries Egypt or Qatar
...an emirate on the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It sits on some really productive gas and oil deposits, which produces the highest per capita income in the world. They piss it all away on religion, financing the Moslem Brotherhood and several al-Qaeda affiliates. Home of nutbag holy manYusuf al-Qaradawi...
at this time.
Visiting southern Gaza on Thursday, IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir said the army was driving ahead with the planned offensive, intended to conquer the city and drive out Hamas
..not a terrorist organization, even though it kidnaps people, holds hostages, and tries to negotiate by executing them,...from its remaining strongholds in the area.
"We are advancing efforts for action in Gaza City. We already have forces operating on the outskirts of the city, and additional forces will join them later," Zamir told troops in Khan Younis who had repelled a Hamas attack on their encampment on Wednesday.
In a sign of growing despair at conditions in Gaza, residents staged a rare show of protest against the war on Thursday. Carrying banners reading "Save Gaza, enough" and "Gaza is dying by the killing, hunger and oppression," hundreds of people rallied in Gaza City in a march organized by several civil unions.
The security cabinet approved a general plan to seize Gaza City earlier this month, and on Wednesday, the army began calling up 60,000 reservists expected to be drafted for the offensive, following Defense Minister Israel Katz’s approval of the army’s plans.
Thursday’s meeting was intended to give Netanyahu and the security cabinet a chance to approve specific operational plans, according to a source close to the prime minister.
The offensive is expected to force up to a million Paleostinian civilians in Gaza City and its environs to flee south.
To prepare for the mass displacement, the IDF said Thursday it had begun to give "initial warnings," with officers from COGAT, the Defense Ministry unit that coordinates with Gazook civilians, telling medical officials and aid groups in the northern part of the enclave "to prepare for the population’s movement to the southern Gaza Strip."
"I am speaking with you about the possibility of the army entering Gaza City. There will be a full evacuation from Gaza to the southern Strip," a COGAT officer was recorded saying in a call with a health official in Gaza, according to a transcript provided by the IDF.
The officer recommended that officials plan to send medical equipment south and ready hospitals there to receive those set to be forced out of Gaza City.
"We are going to provide you with a place to be, whether it is a field hospital or any other hospital," he added.
The IDF said the officers emphasized to Gazook medical officials that "the hospital infrastructures in the southern Gaza Strip are being adapted for the absorption of the sick and maimed, alongside an increased entry of necessary medical equipment in accordance with the requests of the international aid organizations."
On Wednesday, the army said efforts to set up humanitarian infrastructure in the Strip’s south had started, including allowing tents and shelter equipment into the enclave in recent days.
Thousands of Paleostinians in Gaza City have already left their homes as Israeli forces have escalated shelling on the Sabra and Tuffah neighborhoods. Some families have left for shelters along the coast, while others have moved to central and southern parts of the enclave, according to residents there.
"We are facing a bitter, bitter situation, to die at home or leave and die somewhere else. As long as this war continues, survival is uncertain," said Rabah Abu Elias, 67, a father of seven.
Thursday saw a rocket launched from an area next to Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis toward a corridor used to deliver humanitarian aid
in the southern Gaza Strip, the IDF said. According to the military, the rocket was launched while a convoy of trucks was heading toward Kerem Shalom Crossing to collect aid. The military said the rocket struck some 300 meters from the route. No injuries were reported in the incident."The launch is yet another example of the ongoing attempts by the terrorist organization to systematically and brutally sabotage the passage of humanitarian aid by the international organizations and disrupt the distribution of humanitarian aid to Gazook civilians," the IDF stated.
COGAT has previously said it invests considerable efforts to ensure aid reaches Gaza and has denied restricting supplies. It said Thursday that aircraft from Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Germany, the Netherlands, La Belle France, Singapore, and Indonesia had airdropped 155 pallets of humanitarian aid in the Gaza Strip.
Each pallet contains several hundred kilograms of food, according to the military. Indonesia, the country with the largest Moslem population in the world, does not have relations with Israel.
Israel has also been allowing several hundred truckloads of aid to enter Gaza daily, though the UN says the number is less than half of what is required to sustain the Strip’s residents.
Thursday also saw an IDF soldier moderately injured by gunfire in the Zeitoun area on the outskirts of Gaza City, the military said. The IDF suspects he was hit by Hamas sniper fire. The soldier was taken to a hospital for treatment.