Troop advance happens as mediators – USA, Egypt and Qatar – await Netanyahu’s response to the response of truce, which was accepted by Hamas and would allow the release of hostages
With bombing and operations, the Israeli army intensified the offensive This Thursday (21), with the objective of taking what it presents as the last major stronghold of Hamas in Palestinian territory. Five divisions should participate in the offensive, according to the army, which plans to call another 60,000 reservists. The advance of troops happens at the moment the mediators – Egypt and Qatar – They continue to await the formal response of Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to a truce proposal that would allow the liberation of Israeli hostages, and was accepted by Hamas.
“Let’s not wait. We started preliminary actions and, at the moment, the Israeli army troops control the surroundings of the city of Gaza,” the military forces said. Prime Minister Netanyahu Security Office authorized, at the beginning of August, a plan to militarily take the city and the adjacent refugee camps, as well as to take control of the entire track, release hostages and disarm Hamas. Forty -nine hostages remain in captivity in Palestinian territory, but 27 are considered dead, according to the army. During the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023, which triggered the war, the terrorists kidnapped 251 people.
More panic
Since the beginning of the war, It maintains the siege of more than two million inhabitants of the track and currently controls 75% of the territory, where the retaliation operation caused tens of thousands of deaths and a humanitarian disaster. For more than a week, several neighborhoods in the city of Gaza, the largest urban nucleus in the north, face intense bombings of aviation and artillery. The hardest affected areas are Zeien and Al Sabra. The bombing in the city of Gaza continued on Thursday, according to several testimonials. Many residents fled west and south.
“The house trembled all night. The sound of the explosions, artillery, combat planes, ambulances and shouts is killing us,” one of them told AHMAD AL SHANTI to AFP. The Israeli army detailed on Thursday a series of operations performed in Gaza in recent weeks. The country’s security forces stated that maneuvers and attacks “created conditions” to intensify pressure on Hamas and set the foundations for the next phases of the campaign.
On Wednesday, Defense Minister Israel Katz approved the offensive in the city of Gaza. According to Israeli press, Netanyahu is expected to gather his office on Thursday to give final approval. The Red Cross International Committee (CIAB), involved in hostage exchange operations by Palestinian prisoners during the previous two truce, classified as “intolerable” the intensification of hostilities as “intolerable”.
“It means more dead, more displacement, more destruction and more panic,” CIABO spokesman Christian Cardon told AFP. The UN humanitarian agency also warned that the Israeli plan will have “a terrible humanitarian impact” on the population and forcing residents to the south “could be equivalent to forced displacement.” He also warned that many people who have been forced to escape “remain trapped, completely isolated and without food, water and medicine supplies.”
Flagrant contempt
Hamas, which accepted the current proposal for a ceasefire agreement, considered that the operation in the city of Gaza demonstrates “a blatant contempt for the efforts of the mediators.” Netanyahu “demonstrates that it is the real obstacle to any agreement that does not care about life (of Israeli hostages) and that it has no serious intention to rescue them,” he added in a statement released on Wednesday. The proposal is based on an earlier plan by the American envoy Steve Witkoff, which had been validated by Israel. The plan foresees the release of 10 living hostages and the bodies of 18 victims in exchange for a 60-day ceasefire and negotiations to end the war. The other hostages would be released after a second phase of negotiations, according to sources from Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
*With information from AFP
