Israel begins first stage of planned assault on Gaza City

Israel has begun preparing for their planned assault on Gaza City, according to multiple reports. The offensive is part of Israel’s plan to eliminate Hamas from the Gaza Strip, which has caused some pushback internationally.

Invasion of Gaza City

That plan includes calling up 60,000 military reservists to help with the expanded military operation and extending service for another 20,000 reservists.

“We have begun the preliminary actions and the initial stages of the offensive on Gaza City, and already now IDF forces are holding positions on the outskirts of Gaza City,” Israeli military spokesman Effie Defrin told outlets including NBC News.

Defrin also said the plan is to intensify strikes against Hamas in Gaza City and minimize harm to civilians. He said the Israeli Defense Force, or IDF, would warn citizens and give them a chance to leave.

“[The] most important thing that’s going on right now is Israelis want to invade Gaza City and move parts of the population, if not all of the population, to the south,” James Gelvin, professor of modern Middle East history at UCLA, told Straight Arrow News.

The assault will likely force Gazans towards the southern city of Rafah, where residents are facing an ongoing famine.

“The population is pretty much without electricity, without water, without food, and it’s generally just a horrific situation that they’re enduring at the present time,” Gelvin said. “They’re pretty much damned that they do, damned if they don’t.”

It’s unclear when the push into Gaza City will begin.

The Israelis will also likely encounter some resistance when they attempt to take the city.

While the fighting arm of Hamas is weakened, experts say the Israelis will still likely see some armed militants, but not much.

“There are some guerrilla groups, and they can recruit some youths and give them a few arms, and they will emerge every once in a while, and shoot like they did just the other day,” Omer Bartov, professor of Holocaust and genocide studies at Brown University, told Straight Arrow News. “An RPG here and a sniper bullet there, but there is no organized resistance. So, it’s unlikely that the IDF will encounter any serious resistance.”There’s also some pushback from inside Israel with citizens who are not happy about the war as a whole.

Along with international pushback to this plan, there was some original concern from inside the IDF.

“The IDF would be responsible for all of Gaza,” Bartov said. “That is, including the areas in which the population lives. And if you are the occupier, even the IDF, that has been involved in massive war crimes, knows that they would be responsible for their population. Feeding it, even schooling, health services, everything that has been deliberately destroyed until now, the IDF will be responsible to maintain it. And there’s neither the manpower for that, nor the budget.”

Israeli reaction

Straight Arrow News also spoke with Shai Feldman, Raymond Frankel Chair in Israeli Politics and Society at the Crown Center for Middle East Studies at Brandeis University, who has spent much of the year living in Haifa.

He said much of the Israeli population is not happy with what’s going on. Feldman said Israelis were told the war consists of three objectives.

“One is to destroy Hamas as a military threat,” Feldman said. “Secondly, to destroy Hamas’ governing capacity in Gaza. And the third, to release the hostages. None of these have so far been achieved after 22 months.”

Hundreds of thousands of Israelis came out over the weekend to protest the war and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“This war has already cost thousands on both sides, but the hostages issue is a very, very, very emotional issue in Israel and going into another major military operation without any compelling story about how this is not likely to significantly negatively affect hostages is another reason why Israelis are in the street,” Feldman said.

Ceasefire agreement

All of this comes amid ceasefire attempts between Israel and Hamas.

“Israel is right now trying to do two strategies at the same time,” Gelvin said. “One strategy is for a negotiated ceasefire with Hamas, and the other one is to destroy Hamas. And they are incompatible strategies.”

Hamas reportedly agreed to a recent ceasefire deal following pressure from Palestinians and other Arab nations who do not want to see Israel invade Gaza City.

The Israeli government has yet to agree to that proposal. Bartov believes the Israelis have some motivation to keep the war going.

“This is an operation that will last into 2026, so it’s clearly part of another pattern, which is Netanyahu’s attempt to keep the war going at least until when the elections are supposed to happen in October 2026,” Bartov said.

The White House has weighed in on the proposal but hasn’t said much.

“As for this proposal that Hamas has now accepted, the United States continues to discuss it, and I’ll let the president weigh in on it definitively,” said Karoline Leavitt, White House spokesperson.

America’s role

The United States continues to be Israel’s biggest ally in this ongoing violence, and Israeli leadership believes the Trump administration is behind the plan to take over Gaza City.

“It’s very similar to what the United States did in Iraq, which is a full-scale occupation,” Gelvin said. “So what they’re going to try to do is to take over as much territory as possible.”

The Trump administration recently sanctioned four International Criminal Court judges and prosecutors over the court’s targeting of Israeli leaders like Netanyahu.

“I thank President [Trump] and Secretary of State [Marco Rubio] for standing firmly with us,” Israeli Minister of Defense Israel Katz said on X, translated from Hebrew. “By sanctioning ICC officials, the U.S. has sent a powerful message: we will not bow to the ICC’s shamelessly corrupt political persecution, led by officials who seek to deny Israel its fundamental right to defend itself. This historic step reflects the unbreakable alliance between Israel and the United States, grounded in shared values of justice, truth, and freedom.”

The move to sanction the ICC did not sit well with other American allies like France and the United Nations.

“What Israel is doing is genocide,” Bartov said. “The U.S. is a signatory to the Genocide Convention, and if you, as a country, identify the genocide is happening, it’s incumbent on you to act to prevent it and to punish it. In that sense, the U.S. right now is complicit in what’s going on. And people should understand that the IDF is doing it with American aircraft, American bombs, American support. And there’ll be a huge stain on Israel, but there will also be one on the United States.”

Feldman said citizens in both countries also seem to see that and take issue with their leadership.

“There is a deficit of leadership in Israel at the center and center left,” Feldman said. “It’s not entirely different from the situation, as I read it in the U.S., where you have a president who was elected, and then there is no clear leader of the center and center left in the U.S.”