The IDF chief on Friday vowed to carry out “in the best possible way” Israel’s decision to conquer Gaza City, as Palestinian media and Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry reported at least 17 killed in the past day by Israeli bombing, starvation and being hit by airdropped aid packages.
Meanwhile, Arab mediators were said to be working on a deal to release all 50 remaining hostages from Gaza in one fell swoop in exchange for an end to the war and full Israeli withdrawal from the Strip after talks for a partial deal hit an impasse last month.
The security cabinet earlier Friday voted to approve a proposal from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to conquer Gaza City. The decision sparked fierce criticism at home and abroad over concerns that it would deepen the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and endanger the hostages. The plan has also faced criticism from the government’s far-right, which says it does not go far enough.
Meanwhile, in Gaza on Friday, the Strip’s Hamas-run health ministry said four people, including children, had died as a result of starvation over the past 24 hours, bringing the toll of starvation-related deaths in the war to 201. The figure could not immediately be verified.
Khan Younis’s Nasser Hospital reported that one child was also killed by an airdropped aid package in Khan Younis. The circumstances were not immediately clear.
Media outlets in Gaza reported Friday that six people, most of them children, were injured when an aid package was airdropped into Gaza City and landed on a balcony, which collapsed onto the crowd beneath it.
Three people were also reportedly killed and several others injured by IDF gunfire while waiting for aid distribution in the Netzarim Corridor in central Gaza.
It was unclear if the distribution site in question belonged to the US- and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, near whose sites there have been near-daily reports of aid seekers killed by Israel.
WAFA, the Palestinian Authority’s official news agency, also reported five people killed in an Israeli bombing of Deir al-Balah, in Gaza’s center, and cited medical sources in the Hamas-run Strip as saying two people each were killed in further bombings in Khan Younis and Gaza City.
The IDF did not immediately comment on any of the reported bombings or fatal airdrops of aid.
Meeting with division heads and top generals at the Southern Command on Friday morning, IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, who warned the cabinet against the expanded fighting, said, “We will continue to lead from the national responsibility placed on the IDF and its commanders,” according to comments provided by the military.
“We are responsible for the army’s readiness, the security of the state and its citizens, the return of the hostages, and the defeat of Hamas, and so we shall do,” said Zamir, according to an IDF statement. “My responsibility is to provide you and the soldiers in particular with as much certainty as possible, to create pauses and a proper endurance. It is in light of this responsibility that we operate.”
Zamir said the IDF is “working on the new plan. We will deepen the planning, prepare at the highest level in all its aspects, and as always, we will carry out the mission in the best possible way.”
Zamir also stressed in the meeting that “as the war develops, the IDF will act to safeguard the lives of the hostages, allow the forces to refresh in order to strengthen endurance, and operate according to the values and spirit of the IDF.”
“The chief of staff noted that in the coming days the IDF will deepen operational planning with professionalism… with the aim of creating conditions for the return of the hostages and the collapse of the Hamas regime,” the military added.
The comments came as troops in Gaza continued razing what the army said was terror infrastructure and killing gunmen, and as six European and Arab nations airdropped packages of humanitarian supplies into the Strip as part of Israel’s recently adopted aid policy, according to the military.
The IDF Artillery Corps’ elite Sky Riders Unit, together with troops of the 401st Armored Brigade, destroyed a primed rocket launcher in northern Gaza on Thursday, after it was used to fire a rocket at Nir Am, the military said, adding that the launcher had been primed to fire several more rockets at Israel before it was destroyed.
Elsewhere in Gaza, the IDF said troops of the 36th Division are continuing to operate in Khan Younis, in the south of the enclave, where they “destroyed underground infrastructure and eliminated terror cells that posed a threat to the forces.”
Additional forces in southern Gaza located and destroyed several tunnel shafts in the past 24 hours, the IDF added.
At the same time, it said the 282nd Artillery Regiment destroyed a weapons depot, and the 990th Reserve Artillery Regiment hit buildings that posed a threat to troops in the Shejaiya and Zeitoun neighborhoods of Gaza City.
The military also said Friday that it confirmed having killed the deputy commander of Hamas’s Beit Hanoun Battalion during operations in the town in the northern Gaza Strip over the past month.
The deputy commander, Murad Abu Jarad, served as the de facto commander of the Beit Hanoun Battalion during most of 2024, the military said, adding that he was involved in numerous attacks on troops and that he had participated in the Hamas onslaught of October 7, 2023, which sparked the war in Gaza.
In a separate operation, the military said it killed the head of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s anti-tank missile unit in the terror group’s Gaza City brigade, Mohammed Dardawasi, who also participated in the October 7 onslaught. In another strike, the IDF said it killed several Hamas and Islamic Jihad operatives who were involved in rocket fire and sniper attacks.
In addition to the fighting, aircraft from the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Germany, Belgium, France, and — for the first time — the Netherlands airdropped 72 pallets of humanitarian aid in the Gaza Strip today, the IDF said. Each pallet contains around one ton of food.
Since July 26, when Israel adopted a new policy to let more aid into the Strip, over 1,000 humanitarian aid packages have been airdropped in the Gaza Strip by 10 countries, including Israel, according to the military. The packages the IDF airdropped were supplied by international aid groups.
Israel re-adopted the policy amid mounting international criticism over the hunger crisis in Gaza. But airdrops are only able to deliver a small fraction of what can come into Gaza by land. They also pose safety risks for the civilians who can be hit by the packages from above.
Israel has denied using starvation as a weapon of war in Gaza and blamed the crisis on Hamas diverting aid and the United Nations’ failure to properly distribute assistance. The UN has retorted that the war’s conditions and Israeli restrictions have made upholding a functioning humanitarian operation all but impossible.
Mediators from Egypt and Qatar are working on a new framework which would include the release of all hostages — dead and alive — in one go in return for an end of the war in Gaza and the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the strip, according to two Arab officials speaking to The Associated Press anonymously due to the sensitivity of the discussions.
One is involved directly in the deliberations, and the second was briefed on the efforts.
The efforts have the backing of major Arab Gulf monarchies, the officials said, as they are concerned about further regional destabilization if Israel’s government proceeds with a full reoccupation of Gaza, two decades after its unilateral withdrawal from the Strip.
The yet-to-be finalized framework aims to address the contentious issue of what to do with Hamas’s weapons, with Israel seeking full disarmament and Hamas refusing. The official directly involved in the efforts said discussions were underway about “freezing arms,” which may involve Hamas retaining but not using its weapons. The official also called for the group to relinquish power in the strip.
A Palestinian-Arab committee would run Gaza and oversee the reconstruction efforts until the establishment of a Palestinian administration with a new police force, trained by two US allies in the Middle East, to take over the strip, said the source. It was unclear what role the Western-backed Palestinian Authority would play. The Israeli cabinet decision on Friday specifically ruled out a role for the PA in Gaza’s post-war governance.
The second official said a powerful Gulf country is supporting the Egyptian-Qatari efforts.
A senior Hamas official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to brief the media, said the group’s leadership is aware of the Arab mediators’ efforts to revive the ceasefire talks, but has yet to receive details.
AP reached out to the governments in Qatar, Egypt and Israel for comment but did not hear back.