Asian Tribune Your Multilingual Newspaper covering World and local news News
Tens of thousands of reservists started to report for duty on Tuesday ahead of a new Israeli offensive in Gaza City as more than 80 people were killed in Israeli airstrikes in the past 24 hours, according to local health officials.
Israeli Army Radio said that some 40,000 reservists would report for duty on Tuesday for the Gaza City offensive. The military said it was readying logistically for the intake of reservists ahead of the offensive, which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wants to speed up, despite warnings from senior ranks.
Israel’s security cabinet, chaired by Netanyahu, approved a plan last month to expand the campaign in Gaza with the aim of taking Gaza City, where Israeli forces waged fierce urban warfare with Hamas in the early stages of the war. Israel currently holds about 75 per cent of the Gaza Strip.
A security cabinet meeting late on Sunday included angry exchanges between Netanyahu and his ministers, who want to push ahead with the Gaza City offensive, and military chief Eyal Zamir, who has urged the politicians to reach a ceasefire deal.
Zamir said the campaign will endanger hostages and put further strain on the already overstretched army, according to four ministers and two military officials present at the meeting.
This follows previous tense exchanges between Zamir and Netanyahu’s cabinet. Netanyahu said on Aug. 20 that he gave instructions to speed up the timetable to take Gaza City, but the next day the military warned against hostages being endangered and said it could not begin the campaign for two months, according to a source in Netanyahu’s circle and a defence official.
The military’s main reason was that more time was needed for humanitarian efforts. But surveys have shown a proportion of reservists are unhappy with the cabinet’s plans, with some having taken the unusual step of openly accusing the government of lacking a cohesive strategy, a post-war plan for Gaza or clear victory metrics.
“I don’t feel like I’m doing anything that really applies significant pressure to have Hamas release the hostages,” one combat reservist who has been serving in Gaza since Oct. 7 told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to speak publicly.
26 killed in Israeli strikes on houses
At least 86 people were killed in Israeli strikes across Gaza, and scores more were wounded in the past 24 hours, local health authorities said.
Three separate airstrikes killed 26 people in total in houses in the Gaza City suburbs, where the Israeli forces stepped up aerial and ground bombardment in preparation for expanding the fighting.
Outside Gaza City’s Al-Shifa Hospital, white plastic body bags with corpses were laid out on the street spattered with blood. Crowds wailed for slain relatives.
“We fled [our homes] with nothing. They went to get clothes and food from their homes, to bring clothes for their children and food for themselves … and look now! They came back as martyrs!” said Nasr Nasr, a relative of some of the dead.
Israel has killed nearly 90 Palestinians in the past 24 hours, Gaza health officials confirmed on Sunday. As Israel attacks Gaza City while halting humanitarian pauses, UNICEF’s Tess Ingram says Palestinians are feeling desperate and exhausted, but they’re out of options when it comes to relocating.
Hundreds of mourners carried bodies through the streets. Others stood and prayed around a group of five bodies in shrouds, including three tiny children.
The Israeli army’s Arabic service spokesperson told residents of Gaza there would be better humanitarian services in the south, as the army prepared to expand the Gaza City offensive.
13 more die of malnutrition
The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but it has stated that its forces are combating fighters on the outskirts of Gaza City, destroying tunnels and militant infrastructure and seizing weapons.
Other deaths reported on Tuesday included five people killed while waiting in a food line in the south, nine killed in a strike on an apartment and seven killed by Israeli tank fire.
Thirteen more Palestinians, including three children, died of malnutrition and starvation in Gaza in the past 24 hours, the territory’s Health Ministry said on Tuesday, raising officially reported deaths from such causes to at least 361, including 130 children, the vast majority in recent weeks.
Israel disputes the hunger fatality figures given by Gaza’s Health Ministry, arguing that deaths were due to other medical causes.
Israel’s military says it’s suspending mid-day pauses that allowed the delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza City, calling it a ‘a dangerous combat zone.’ Meanwhile, Israel has recovered the body of hostage Ilan Weiss, who was kidnapped from his home and killed during the Oct. 7, 2023, cross-border attack by Hamas.
The war in Gaza began on Oct. 7, 2023, when gunmen led by Hamas attacked southern Israeli communities near the border, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages into Gaza, according to Israeli figures.
More than 62,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s air and ground war in Gaza since then, according to Gaza health officials, who do not say how many were militants but have said most of those killed have been women and children.
Ceasefire talks that would see a pause in the fighting ended in a deadlock in July.
Israeli authorities believe that of the 48 remaining captives, 20 hostages are still alive.