The prime minister and IDF chief vowed Tuesday to press on with the war against Hamas, as the Israel Defense Forces called up tens of thousands of reservists for the impending conquest of Gaza City.

Premier Benjamin Netanyahu said the war was entering its “decisive stage,” while IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir told troops that the Gaza City campaign was already moving forward and that operations would be intensified and expanded.

“We will not stop the war until we defeat this enemy,” Zamir said during a visit to central Israel’s Nachshonim base, where he spoke with newly mobilized reservists and personnel from the Technological and Logistics Directorate.

“Hamas will have no place to hide from us. Wherever we locate them, whether they are senior or junior figures – we strike them all, all the time,” he said. “We are already entering places we have never entered before and operating there with courage, strength, valor, and an extraordinary spirit.”

Both men’s speeches came as the IDF called up tens of thousands of reservists for the offensive in Gaza City, which Netanyahu has portrayed as Hamas’s last stronghold — having last year also presented Rafah as its last bastion. A recent report estimate said the operation would cost tens of billions of shekels, necessitating government budget cuts.

The call-up — which has reportedly seen fewer soldiers report for duty as the war nears the two-year mark —  was taking place as the IDF targeted Hamas commanders, and as Hamas-run Gazan authorities reported dozens killed across the Strip, including children allegedly struck by an IDF drone at a water distribution site.

The IDF said on Tuesday that troops in the enclave had killed dozens of terror operatives in the past month who had been planning attacks against IDF forces in the Strip’s north and center.

These included Ahmad Abu Daf, who was serving as a deputy company commander in the Zeitoun Battalion, and who helped lead dozens of attacks and ambushes against IDF forces, in addition to recruiting new operatives into Hamas. Another key operative killed was Taleb Sidqi Taleb Abu Atiwi, a team commander in Hamas’s elite Nukhba force who infiltrated Israeli territory during the terror group’s October 7, 2023, massacre, the army said.

The military also confirmed an earlier report that it had killed a Hamas terrorist who held Israeli hostages Emily Damari, Romi Gonen and Naama Levy. All three were released during a ceasefire at the beginning of the year.

The military also said Tuesday that the Air Force had struck and destroyed buildings in Shejaiya and Zeitoun, in the Gaza City area, that were used as meeting places for Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad gunmen to plan attacks.

The IDF has urged civilians, aid groups and medical workers to evacuate the area in the Strip’s south as the offensive ramps up, and in a social media post on Tuesday, the IDF’s Arabic-language spokesperson Avichay Adraee again urged all of Gaza’s residents to leave the area.

In a post on X, Adraee said that the coastal al-Mawasi area would see improved humanitarian services, including healthcare, water and food.

Recent reports estimate that only some 10,000 of Gaza City’s roughly 1 million residents have evacuated to the south in the three weeks since Israel announced it would empty the city of its civilian population.

Netanyahu said in a video address to the reservists on Tuesday that Israel was “moving toward total victory.”

“What began in Gaza must end in Gaza,” he said. “Now we stand before the decisive stage. I believe in you, I trust you, and the entire nation embraces you.”

Netanyahu has claimed multiple times since the October 7 attack that Israel is nearing victory in the 23-month-old war. Zamir and other officials have warned that the Gaza City offensive could endanger hostages and soldiers, and urged Israel to agree to a temporary ceasefire and deal that Hamas said it accepted last month and that would release 10 of the some 20 living hostages believed to be held by the terror group. In total, terror groups in Gaza are holding 48 hostages.

Israel has not responded to that agreement, though Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer, a Netanyahu confidant, reportedly told mediators that Israel has yet to rule it out.

Instead, recent cabinet meetings have focused on the Gaza City operation, which, according to a report on the Kan public broadcaster, could cost NIS 25 billion ($7.4 billion). That price tag could necessitate cuts across other government departments, the network reported.

On Tuesday, Gaza’s Hamas-run civil defense agency said Israeli forces killed at least 82 people across the Strip. In one reported strike, an IDF drone hit a water distribution point in al-Mawasi in the south, where, according to local media, at least 11 people were killed, including seven children.

The IDF said in response to an inquiry that it was not aware of the strike.

Other deaths reported on Tuesday included dozens near aid distribution sites in southern Gaza, Palestinian medics said.

Thirteen more Palestinians, including three children, died of malnutrition and starvation in Gaza over the past 24 hours, the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry said on Tuesday. That raised the reported death toll from such causes since the beginning of the war to at least 361, including 130 children, the vast majority in recent weeks.

Outside Gaza City’s Shifa Hospital, white plastic body bags with corpses were laid out on the street. Crowds wailed for slain relatives.

“We fled [our homes] with nothing. They went to get clothes and food from their homes, to bring clothes for their children and food for themselves… and look now! They came back as martyrs!” said Nasr Nasr, a relative of some of the dead.

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. Israel has said it seeks to minimize civilian fatalities and stresses that Hamas uses Gaza’s civilians as human shields, fighting from civilian areas including homes, hospitals, schools and mosques.

Israel’s toll in the ground offensive against Hamas in Gaza and in military operations along the border with the Strip stands at 460.