Gaza war: Israel prepares to move Palestinians as Netanyahu greenlights military offence to defeat Hamas

Israel announced Saturday that it is preparing to move Palestinians from combat zones to southern Gaza as plans move ahead for a military offensive in some of the territory's most populated areas.

Israel said it intended to launch a new offensive to seize control of northern Gaza City, the enclave's largest urban centre, in a plan that raised international alarm over the fate of the demolished strip, home to about 2.2 million people.

Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu had earlier announced that the military had been given the green light to “dismantle” what he described as two remaining Hamas strongholds: Gaza City in the north and al-Mawasi further to the south, Al Jazeera reported.

Netanyahu said last Sunday that before launching the offensive, the civilian population will be evacuated to what he described as "safe zones" from Gaza City, which he called Hamas' last stronghold.

‘Supply of tents and shelter equipment to Gaza will resume’

In the wake of these developments, Gaza residents will be provided with tents and other shelter equipment starting from Sunday ahead of relocating them from combat zones to the south of the enclave "to ensure their safety," the Israeli military said on Saturday.

The Israeli military body in charge of humanitarian aid to Gaza, COGAT, said the supply of tents to the territory would resume on Sunday.

'Finalize plan to defeat Hamas'

The military said it had no comment on when the mass movement of Palestinians would begin, but Defense Minister Israel Katz said on social media that “we are now in the stage of discussions to finalize the plan to defeat Hamas in Gaza."

“And at their conclusion, there will be a comprehensive and powerful plan to carry out the mission in all its aspects,” Katz said.

Meanwhile, anxious families of Israeli hostages called for a “nationwide day of stoppage” in Israel on Sunday to express growing frustration over 22 months of war.

Families of hostages fear the coming offensive further endangers the 50 hostages remaining in Gaza, just 20 of them thought to still be alive. They and other Israelis were horrified by the recent release of videos showing emaciated hostages speaking under duress and pleading for help and food.

The families and supporters have pressed the government for a deal to stop the war — a call that some former Israeli army and intelligence chiefs have made as well in recent weeks.

A group representing the families has urged Israelis into the streets on Sunday. “Across the country, hundreds of citizen-led initiatives will pause daily life and join the most just and moral struggle: the struggle to bring all 50 hostages home,” it said in a statement.

“I want to believe that there is hope, and it will not come from above, it will come only from us,” said Dana Silberman Sitton, sister of Shiri Bibas and aunt of Kfir and Ariel Bibas, who were killed in captivity.

She spoke at a weekly rally in Tel Aviv, along with Pushpa Joshi, sister of kidnapped Nepalese hostage Bipin Joshi, a student seized from a kibbutz.

“I miss my best friend,” Pushpa said.

Airstrike kills a baby girl and her parents

An Israeli airstrike in Gaza killed a baby girl and her parents on Saturday, Nasser hospital officials and witnesses said. Motasem al-Batta, his wife and the girl were killed in their tent in the crowded Muwasi area.

“Two and a half months, what has she done?" neighbor Fathi Shubeir asked, sweating as temperatures in the shattered territory soared above 90 degrees Fahrenheit (32 degrees Celsius). “They are civilians in an area designated safe.”

Israel's military said it couldn't comment on the strike without more details. It said it is dismantling Hamas’ military capabilities and takes precautions not to harm civilians.

Muwasi is one of the heavily populated areas in Gaza where Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said Israel plans to widen the coming military offensive, along with Gaza City and “central camps” — an apparent reference to the built-up Nuseirat and Bureij camps in central Gaza.

Israel may be using the threat to pressure Hamas into releasing more hostages taken in its October 7, 2023, attack that sparked the war.

Elsewhere, an official at Shifa Hospital in Gaza City said it received the bodies of six people who were killed in the Zikim area of northern Gaza, as well as four people killed in shelling.

11 more deaths related to malnutrition

Another 11 malnutrition-related deaths occurred in Gaza over the past 24 hours, the territory’s Health Ministry said Saturday, with one child among them. That brings malnutrition-related deaths during the war to 251.

The United Nations is warning that levels of starvation and malnutrition in Gaza are at their highest since the war began. Palestinians are drinking contaminated water as diseases spread, while some Israeli leaders continue to talk openly about the mass relocation of people from Gaza.

A 20-year old Palestinian woman described as being in a “state of severe physical deterioration” died Friday after being transferred from Gaza to Italy for treatment, the hospital said Saturday.

The UN and partners say getting food and other aid into the territory of over 2 million people, and then on to distribution points, remains highly challenging with Israeli restrictions and pressure from crowds of hungry Palestinians.

The UN human rights office says at least 1,760 people were killed while seeking aid between May 27 and Wednesday. It says 766 were killed along routes of supply convoys and 994 in the vicinity of “non-U.N. militarized sites," a reference to the Israeli-backed and US-supported Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which since May has been the primary distributor of aid in Gaza.

US stops visitor visas for people from Gaza

The US State Department on Saturday said all visitor visas for people from Gaza are being stopped while a review is carried out of how “a small number of temporary medical-humanitarian visas” were issued in recent days.

The Hamas-led attack in 2023 killed around 1,200 people in Israel. Israel's retaliatory offensive has killed 61,897 people in Gaza, according to the Health Ministry, which does not specify how many were fighters or civilians but says around half were women and children.

The ministry is part of the Hamas-run government and staffed by medical professionals. The UN and independent experts consider it the most reliable source on casualties. Israel disputes its figures but has not provided its own.

(With inputs from Associated Press)