Israel launches expanded ground offensive, says ‘Gaza is burning’

Israel’s much-anticipated ground incursion into Gaza City has incited criticism and warnings from much of the international community, advocacy and aid organizations, as well as the family members of the remaining Israeli hostages.

But behind closed doors, it has also elicited protests from Israel’s military leadership, who are charged with executing the political decision but whose ranks have been stretched by nearly two years of war on multiple fronts. 

The top critic, according to Israeli media reports and one Israeli official briefed on the internal discussions, is Eyal Zamir, the chief of the general staff of the Israel Defense Forces. 

In meetings Friday with the parliamentary Committee for Intelligence Affairs, according to the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth, Zamir also complained that the prime minister had not yet identified plans for a “day after” in the Gaza Strip, meaning the expanded military operations lacked a strategy to ultimately end the war.

The source briefed on the discussions confirmed Zamir’s opposition.

But Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz was defiant in a post on X this morning. “Gaza is burning. The IDF strikes with an iron fist at the terrorist infrastructure and IDF soldiers are fighting bravely to create the conditions for the release of the hostages and the defeat of Hamas. We will not relent and we will not back down — until the mission is completed,” he wrote.

The new offensive is likely to amplify public Israeli protests against the continued fighting — a fixture of Israel’s home front for nearly the past two years. Those demonstrations are led by family members of the remaining hostages in Gaza, of whom 20 are thought to remain alive. 

The military believes that some, though not all, are in Gaza City, said the person who had been briefed on internal government discussions, who asked to remain anonymous due to the sensitive nature of the ongoing military campaign. 

Last night, family members of hostages demonstrated against the offensive outside Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s residence, and this morning Anat Angrest, whose son Matan, 22, remains in captivity was still protesting.  

“Prime Minister Netanyahu, instead of saving our children, is bombing them. He doesn’t want negotiations, he wants them to come back not alive and disappear there,” she said.