Israeli authorities warned medical facilities and international organizations in the northern Gaza Strip on Thursday to gear up for mass evacuations of civilians as it drove ahead toward a planned military offensive aimed at conquering Gaza City.
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 Gaza, 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 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 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.
The planned offensive 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.
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.
It was unclear whether the ministers would also discuss the phased hostage release deal proposal accepted by Hamas on Monday, to which Israel has yet to formally respond. Netanyahu has indicated that he is not interested in the deal, which would pause fighting for 60 days and see around half of the hostages freed, with talks then held regarding the rest, as well as an end to the war. He has said Israel will only now accept a comprehensive deal to free all hostages.
Earlier this month, the cabinet authorized Netanyahu and Katz to make decisions moving forward regarding the Gaza City takeover without requiring the cabinet to convene each time.
Zamir told troops that military officials were “discussing the plans going forward with the political leadership and creating the best operational achievements on the battlefield in order to present them with the widest range of options,” according to an IDF readout Thursday.
The offensive is expected to force up to a million Palestinian 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,â€� with officers from COGAT, the Defense Ministry unit that coordinates with Gazan 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 Gazan medical officials 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.”
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 Palestinians 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.
International humanitarian groups have warned that the offensive will worsen already dire conditions in the Strip.
Philippe Lazzarini, who heads the UN Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA, voiced concerns Thursday that children suffering from malnutrition in Gaza will die if emergency provisions are not immediately put in place during the Gaza City offensive.
He said UNRWA data showed a sixfold increase in the number of children suffering from malnutrition in Gaza City since March.
“We have a population that is extremely weak that will be confronted with a new major military operation,” he told a Geneva press club meeting. “Many will simply not have the strength to undergo a new displacement.
“Many of them will not survive,” he said.
Without naming Israel, Lazzarini labelled what was happening in Gaza a “manufactured famine” and said food had been used “as a weapon of war.”
The Red Cross, meanwhile, called the planned offensive “intolerable.�
“The intensification of hostilities in Gaza means more killing, more displacement, more destruction and more panic,” Christian Cardon, chief spokesman for the International Committee of the Red Cross, told AFP.
“Gaza is a closed space, from which nobody can escape… and where access to healthcare, food and safe water is dwindling,” said Cardon. “Meanwhile, the security of humanitarians is getting worse by the hour.”
The Red Cross has faced heavy criticism in Israel since the October 7, 2023, Hamas massacre for its failure to secure any meaningful aid for the 251 hostages taken in the attack, whether by monitoring their conditions or providing them with basic humanitarian assistance, including medicine.
Hamas-controlled health authorities claimed Thursday that two more people had died of starvation and malnutrition, raising the number of Palestinians who have died from such causes to 271, including 112 children, since the war began.
Israel disputes the figures, which cannot be verified.
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, 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 Muslim 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.
In Israel, families of hostages held in Gaza since October 7, 2023, warned that the new offensive would “torpedo” chances for a deal to save their loved ones, putting the captives in direct danger.
“Someone who has chosen for three days now not to respond to [Hamas’s acceptance of] an agreement the government already approved, not to convene the security cabinet or the [general] cabinet, has essentially chosen to sacrifice the hostages,� said Bar Goddard, daughter of Manny Goddard, who was killed on October 7 and whose body is one of at least 28 deceased hostages being held in Gaza.