(JNS) The military has approved plans for the next stage of the war in Gaza, and “will continue striking until Hamas is defeated, with the hostages constantly in our sight,” Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir said on Sunday.
During a visit to IDF Southern Command headquarters in Beersheva, Zamir said that the military would “soon” move to the next stage of “Operation Gideon’s Chariots,” during which we will continue to deepen the damage against Hamas in Gaza City until its defeat.
“Gideon’s Chariots,” he continued, has achieved its goals: “Hamas no longer possesses the capabilities it held before the operation—we have struck it hard.”
Zamir, who was accompanied on his visit by senior officers, said “the current campaign was “another layer in a long-term, planned strategy with a multi-arena perspective aiming to strike all elements of the axis, first and foremost Iran.”
According to Israel’s Army Radio on Sunday morning, the plan is to besiege Gaza City, with the aim of gaining control of it by Oct. 7, two years to the day from the devastating Hamas attack that sparked the war.
The operation will reportedly require at least four divisions, including the 98th, 36th and 162nd Divisions. Additional reserve brigades will also be called up, involving tens of thousands of reservists.
Hundreds of thousands of residents will be required to evacuate Gaza City. Gaza’s current humanitarian zones do not have enough space to house the new evacuees, so the IDF will vacate certain areas it currently controls to make room for them, according to Army Radio.
Israel, through COGAT, the Israeli Defense Ministry unit that handles civilian affairs in the Gaza Strip, will supply tents to the evacuees, Army Radio said.
The aid will pass through the Kerem Shalom Crossing to the southern Gaza Strip, in cooperation with the United Nations and international organizations, according to the report.
The IDF has already begun operating in Gaza City’s southwestern Zeitoun quarter, targeting explosives, gunmen and terrorist infrastructure above and below ground, the army reported on Friday.
On Friday, during a meeting with the IDF’s General Staff Forum, Zamir endorsed “the central concept for the plan for the next stages” in the war, the army said.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has insisted that Israel will not occupy the Strip, saying the expansion of the war is aimed at destroying Hamas and freeing the local population from its regime of terror.
On Thursday night, Netanyahu again outlined conditions for ending the fighting, including the full disarmament of Hamas; the return of all 49 remaining hostages, alive or dead, taken on Oct. 7, 2023, and of the remains of Lt. Hadar Goldin, taken in 2014; the demilitarization of the entire Strip; security control of Gaza by the IDF; and establishing “an alternative civilian administration” in the enclave.
On Aug. 7, the Security Cabinet decided by a “decisive majority” to approve Netanyahu’s plan to expand the war effort by gaining control of Gaza City.
However, the government’s decision immediately came under criticism from one of its coalition members, the more hawkish Religious Zionism Party.
Its chairman, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, said the operation was not about seizing control of Gaza (roughly 25% of the Strip remains unconquered), which he supported, but was instead merely an attempt to pressure Hamas to return to the negotiating table over the release of the remaining hostages, of whom only 20 are believed to be alive.
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