Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir on Wednesday approved the military’s “main framework” for seizing control of Gaza City, “in accordance with the directive of the political echelon.”
During a meeting with the IDF’s General Staff Forum, Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) representatives and other members of the Jewish state’s security establishment, Zamir gave his blessing to “the central concept for the plan for the next stages” in the war, the army stated.
The plan to reclaim control of Gaza City from Hamas, which the Security Cabinet approved early Friday with a “decisive majority,” highlights the need to increase “troop readiness and preparedness for reserve recruitment,” Zamir told the meeting, “while conducting proficiency training and providing breathing space ahead of the upcoming missions.”
During the discussion, Zamir and other top commanders presented the military’s ongoing actions against Hamas’s remaining strongholds, “including the strike in the Zeitoun area that began yesterday.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday night that Jerusalem would only agree to end the war on Hamas terrorists in the Gaza Strip in exchange for a deal freeing all remaining hostages.
“We want them all, I want them all, both the living and the dead,” he told i24News. “I want to bring them all back as part of ending the war, but under the conditions of ending the war on our terms,” he added.
“As part of the discussion on our terms—the release of all the hostages, both the living and the dead—we are at the stage of a single deal,” the prime minister said. “There is no going back.”
During the Cabinet vote on Friday, Israel’s government agreed on five principles guiding the continued war effort: Hamas’s full disarmament, returning all 50 hostages, demilitarizing Gaza, achieving Israeli security control of the Strip and creating an alternative civil administration in Gaza.
Israeli negotiators are still seeking to pursue a deal that would include the release of all hostages, an end to the war, a full withdrawal of the IDF from the Strip and arrangements for post-war management, Israel’s Channel 12 News reported on Tuesday, citing sources with knowledge of the matter.
In an overnight announcement on Tuesday, Hamas confirmed that an official delegation led by Khalil al-Hayya had traveled to Cairo at the invitation of the Egyptian government to hold talk with top officials regarding the “latest developments related to the war in Gaza.”
Taher al-Nunu, a Hamas official, said meetings would focus on “ways to stop the war in the Strip, bring in aid, end the suffering of the people in Gaza, address intra-Palestinian relations to reach national agreements on all political issues and discuss bilateral relations with Egypt.”
Zamir on Monday said the war against Hamas had entered a new phase, focused on securing operational control of the Gaza City area.
“We will develop the best method, in line with the defined objectives, while maintaining the professionalism and principles that guide our operations,” declared the IDF chief during a situational assessment.
“We will do so with the readiness of the troops and weaponry, with the hostages at the forefront of our minds—we will do everything to protect their lives and bring them back home,” Zamir added.
Of the fifty hostages that remain in captivity in the Strip, 20 to 22 are believed to be alive after being taken during the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, massacre in southern Israel.
