Click to see full-size image. (Israeli Defense Forces)
The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) announced on September 16 that it “began destroying Hamas infrastructure in Gaza City,” confirming the start of a large-scale offensive, codenamed “Operation Gideon’s Chariots B,” against Hamas.
“Gaza City is considered a dangerous combat zone, staying in the area puts you at risk,” the IDF’s Arabic-language spokesman, Col. Avichay Adraee, said in a post on X.
Civilians were instructed to evacuate the area immediately and head for an Israeli-designated “humanitarian zone” in the Strip’s south.
Adraee added that more than 40% of the estimated one million residents in Gaza City had “left the city for their safety and the safety of their loved ones.”
A day earlier, an estimate published by the IDF alleged that more than 350,000 Palestinians had so far evacuated Gaza City.
In the days leading to the offensive, the IDF intensified strikes on Gaza City and the Strip in general. The military announced that the Israeli Air Force struck over 850 targets in addition to hundreds of operatives in the city over the past week.
The IDF said in a statement that it began a “broad ground operation throughout Gaza City” aimed at “achieving the objectives of the war in the Gaza Strip,” including the defeat of Hamas and the release of the hostages.
“The troops’ activity began in accordance with the operational plan and is expected to expand according to the situation assessment,” the military added.
Besides the intense strikes, Palestinian media reported that the IDF detonated several explosive-laden remote-controlled M113 armored personnel carriers in the Gaza City neighborhoods of Tel al-Hawa and Rimal in the first hours of the offensive.
According to the IDF, the 162nd and 98th divisions are currently expanding their operations in Gaza City, and in the coming days, the 36th division, will join in, adding tens of thousands more troops to the large-scale offensive.
The troops are set to push deeper into the city, and encircle it, as part of efforts to defeat Hamas’s forces there, according to the IDF.
In addition to the Gaza City offensive, the IDF said that the 99th Division will be conducting defensive operations in the occupied buffer zone in northern Gaza, while the Gaza Division will be operating against Hamas in the southern part of the Strip.
In his first remarks after the start of the offensive, Defense Minister Israel Katz said that Israeli troops are “fighting valiantly to create the conditions for the release of the hostages and the defeat of Hamas.”
“Gaza [City] is burning. The IDF is striking the terror infrastructure with an iron fist,” he said in a statement. “We will not relent and we will not back down, until the mission is completed.”
Meanwhile Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu used the offensive as an excuse to skip a scheduled testimony in his corruption trial, which began more than five years ago.
According to Al-Jazeera, at least 45 people have been killed across Gaza since the start of the offensive, while three people died of starvation and Israeli-forced malnutrition crisis in the besieged enclave. Video footage from the Strip revealed that many of the casualties were children.
Notably, the IDF offensive begin as the United Nations released a report accusing Israel of committing a genocide in Gaza, where over 64,900 Palestinians have been killed since the start of the war.
The report, produced by the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem and Israel, concluded that Israel has carried out four of the five genocidal acts defined by the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.
Those acts included, according to the report, “killing, causing serious bodily or mental harm, deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about the destruction of the Palestinians in whole or in part, and imposing measures intended to prevent births.”
The report will not likely discourage Israel from going on with its offensive in Gaza City. Meanwhile, talks on a ceasefire-hostage deal have been on a halt since Israel attempted to assassinate the leadership of Hamas in Qatar exactly a week earlier.
The IDF will likely face fierce resistance from Hamas and other Palestinian armed factions. However, the complete Israeli occupation of Gaza City seems certain.
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operation “dumb little zionists banging empty skulls against the wall” begins
the west proving once again all they can do is killing people that can’t defend themselves.
and meanwhile corrupt and hedonist arabian leaders only can watch and support suni terrorist (hts and isis) againts president assad and hezbollah&shia groups…they are complety useless and cowards againts israel and the genocide of palestians
your point is interesting. iran and the former syrian leader were shia, and the yemeni houthis. yet they stand up for the sunni “palestines”.
saud-arabia, kuwait, united arab emirates, etc. so the very rich arab sunni muslim countries and their leaders are silent. they enjoy western inventions, prosperity and luxury, which they finance with the money they get from the west.
so here are the poor and the rich. it’s all about money…
if only all this hell would move to syria.
you mean the jews?
get used to these pictures…this is what you get if you choose to accept jewish rats to decompose your society from inside. with the control over our money, intelligence agencys, governments, big companys, real estate markets, echochambers, opinions & propaganda we gave em the tools to dictate whole mankind, but hey, whats better than a few religious lunatics that wants to kill any other folk with unlimited might..
jewish decay will decompose and destroy itself. zionism is a cult of self destruction. we win by exhausting the zionists and making their society reach breaking pont. believe me, israeli society is mass psychosis. they are not a healthy place. no society survives intact by sustaining this level of insanity forever. imagine permanent insomnia as a lifestyle. that is israel
you know, i seem to recall yugoslavia getting pulverized for doing the same thing. but apparently gods chosen don’t even get sanctioned!
the arabs got together after the qatar attack and failed again. only iran, qatar and turkey is pushing for economic sanctions on israel. the rest are still kissing swine ass
to be fair if iran is able to create a coalition with just one: it is a huge existential loss for israel. but that also highlights how stupid these arabs are — g-d hates zionists and wants to see them lose on stage! as always! they are hateable pathetic losers meant to be defeated!
no matter which rational mind out their you would cite a passage of talmud, he would know that no human that has this mindset with him ever would enter your lifehood without resistance and problems. palestinians though were forced to live with people that openly declare that they view them as animals, that they want them all to die and that there are no palestinians? they talk of god prophecys, choosen people and god gifted land while telling the world about the religious fanatic muslim..
jews are so extreme, they crucified jesus for attempting to reform their cult
soon they will have fully made it that we accepted these living conditions for people around the globe. people are really like the worst characters of milgram experiment.. bystanders, fearing for everything but dont waste a thought on the whole world going down. i mean these people including all their rats in our countrys are first class sickos, fascists but with a slightly more enormous religious meltdown.
yes….zionists have morals of insects, both christian and jewish zionists. they are normalizing depravity, hate and low standards so people think it is normal. it is not normal. do not ever accept what they are forcing onto the world. these people have black hearts, no souls and follow nazism of the hook nosed variety
they live for prophecys and shit out of books written by even more lunatics a few thousand years ago.. doubtfree childmolesters, murderers, backwarded psychos, slave traders, people’s slaughterers & all corroding demons, whereever you find em in our world. the most rude, false, crude & brutal beasts god’s wonderful earth ever was forced to stand against..
hamas needs to surrender else this is the future. sad, avoidable.
if someone wants to do something for humanity, and that i mean for real.. if you are able to speak fluent french and english as well, translate the films and lectures of dieudonne. thats what he needs and we needs, this solidarity we must raise, otherwise the jews win again.