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2025-08-24 Israel-Palestine-Jordan
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Israeli tanks advanced into Gaza Strip ahead of September offensive; IDF platoon commander accidentally killed by an Israeli explosive in Khan Younis
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[IsraelTimes] Israeli tanks reportedly advanced into a new neighborhood of Gaza City in the Strip’s north on Saturday.
Al Jazeera aired footage purportedly showing IDF tanks in the Sabra neighborhood, which is located in the central part of Gaza City, close to the Zeitoun neighborhood, where the military has been operating for over a week.
The IDF has said it is operating on the outskirts of Gaza City ahead of a major offensive that would see the military capture the entire city. Tens of thousands of reservists are due to show up for duty on September 2 for the offensive, which is likely to begin in the following weeks.
Israeli attacks in the Strip killed at least 34 people on Saturday, according to Palestinian media. The death toll in Gaza was not independently verified and does not differentiate between combatants and civilians.
According to the reports, six of the people killed died while waiting for aid in the Zikim area of the northern Gaza Strip; two were killed in a drone strike on a tent in Khan Younis, and one was killed in a drone strike on a house in al-Sabra, south of Gaza City.
According to health officials at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, Israeli strikes killed at least 14 people in southern Gaza, more than half of them women and children. The officials said the strikes targeted tents sheltering displaced people in Khan Younis.
Betcha Hamas shot off rockets or something from among the tents as usual, but Hamas-owned journalists as usual only reported Israel’s return fire to the Spot where fire originated. Meanwhile, an Israeli officer was killed in an apparent accident in the southern Gaza Strip on Saturday, the military announced.
He was named as Lt. Ori Gerlic, 20, a platoon commander in the Kfir Brigade’s Shimshon Battalion, from Meitar.
According to an initial Israel Defense Forces probe, the officer was killed by an Israeli explosive that detonated, for reasons as-yet unclear, during efforts to demolish structures in Khan Younis.
The military said it was investigating what caused the explosive to detonate prematurely.
Israel’s toll in the ground offensive against Hamas in Gaza and in military operations along the border with the Strip now stands at 460. The toll includes two police officers and three Defense Ministry civilian contractors.
Southern Hospital Preps For Evacuees
[IsraelTimes] Palestinians on Saturday began to clean up and renovate the European Hospital in southern Gaza’s Khan Younis, as part of preparations for the evacuation of Gaza City ahead of the IDF’s planned offensive in the area.
The planned campaign has sparked a major international outcry, with governments and humanitarian groups warning of potentially disastrous consequences for Gaza’s civilians, noting widespread malnutrition that has recently worsened significantly amid the 22-month war.
Earlier this week, the IDF said that the European Hospital, which was closed after the military raided and sealed a Hamas tunnel running underneath it, was slated to resume operations to accommodate the expected influx of people fleeing northern Gaza.
On Thursday, Israeli authorities warned medical facilities and international organizations in the northern Gaza Strip to gear up for mass evacuation.
According to the IDF, Gazan medical officials were told that “the hospital infrastructures in the southern Gaza Strip are being adapted for the absorption of the sick and wounded, alongside an increased entry of necessary medical equipment in accordance with the requests of the international aid organizations.”
A security official said the UN and international aid groups were formulating a plan to restart the hospital “as an additional medical response” for the estimated one million Palestinians who are set to be displaced from Gaza City when the IDF launches its offensive there. The military also warned medical officials in northern Gaza to prepare to move their equipment to hospitals in the Strip’s south.
Footage published by Palestinian media on Friday showed medical staff cleaning up the hospital, as well as an excavator at work in the compound, after the IDF allowed them to enter the area.
On May 13, Hamas’s then-leader in Gaza, Mohammed Sinwar, and other top commanders in the terror group were killed in an airstrike on a tunnel running underneath the hospital. The military raided the medical facility in June, capturing their bodies and sealing the tunnel underneath it with concrete..
The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says more than 62,000 people in the Strip have been killed or are presumed dead in the fighting so far, though the toll cannot be verified and does not differentiate between civilians and fighters. Israel says it has killed over 22,000 combatants in battle as of August and another 1,600 terrorists inside Israel during the October 7 onslaught.
Anyone in Gaza City who doesn’t evacuate ‘can die of hunger or surrender,’ Smotrich said to tell IDF chief
[IsraelTimes] Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his top adviser, Ron Dermer said during a recent meeting that Israel has US President Donald Trump’s full support, but has a limited period of time to carry out its planned military offensive in Gaza City, according to Channel 12 news.
The network quotes the two as saying that Trump wants a quick and decisive operation, and doesn’t want the war against Hamas to further drag out.
The report also says that during the same meeting, military chief Eyal Zamir clashed with far-right ministers Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir, saying the Israel Defense Forces isn’t sure how long it will take to evacuate Gaza City’s civilian population.
“We ordered you [to carry out] a quick operation. In my opinion, you can besiege them. Whoever doesn’t evacuate, don’t let them. No water, no electricity, they can die of hunger or surrender. This is what we want and your capable [of doing it],” Smotrich reportedly said.
Channel 12 says Ben Gvir then asked Zamir whether “you’re scared of the military advocate general,” with the latter responding that “we are operating in other areas, in Khan Younis and Rafah.”
“This isn’t what the political leadership ordered. You don’t want to defeat [Hamas],” Smotrich is quoted as telling Zamir, who reportedly shouted back, “You don’t understand anything. You don’t know what a brigade or battalion is. This takes time.”
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Posted by trailing wife 2025-08-24 00:00||
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File under: Hamas
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Posted by trailing wife 2025-08-24 00:59||
2025-08-24 00:59||
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