Gaza City<\/a> and Hamas was now a \u201cbattered and bruised\u201d guerrilla force.<\/p>\n\u201cWe have begun the preliminary operations and the first stages of the attack on Gaza City, and already now IDF forces are holding the outskirts of Gaza City,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The military on Wednesday called up 60,000 reservists in a sign that the government was pressing ahead with the plan, despite international condemnation. Although one military official said most reservists would not serve in combat and that the strategy to take Gaza City had not yet been finalised.<\/p>\n
Calling up tens of thousands of reservists is also likely to take weeks, giving time for mediators to attempt to bridge gaps over a new temporary ceasefire proposal that Hamas has accepted, but the Israeli government is yet to officially respond to.<\/p>\n
The proposal calls for a 60-day ceasefire and the release of 10 living hostages being held in Gaza by Hamas militants and of 18 bodies. In turn, Israel would release about 200 long-serving Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.<\/p>\n
The Israeli government has restated that all of the remaining 50 hostages held by militants in Gaza must be released at once. Israeli officials believe that around 20 of them are still alive.<\/p>\n
Mr Netanyahu is scheduled to meet with some cabinet ministers on Thursday to discuss his plan to seize Gaza City, according to Haaretz and other Israeli media, without giving more details.<\/p>\n
The plan was approved this month by the security cabinet, which he chairs, even though many of Israel\u2019s closest allies have urged the government to reconsider.<\/p>\n
Mr Netanyahu is under pressure from some far-right members of his coalition to reject a temporary ceasefire and instead to continue the war and pursue the annexation of the territory.<\/p>\n
Two more people have died of starvation and malnutrition in Gaza in the past 24 hours, the territory\u2019s health ministry said on Thursday. The new deaths raised the number of Palestinians who have died from such causes to 271, including 112 children, since the war began.<\/p>\n
Israel disputes malnutrition and starvation figures posted by the Hamas-controlled Gaza health ministry.<\/p>\n
United Nations secretary general Ant\u00f3nio Guterres on Thursday called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, after Israel announced the first steps of an operation to take over Gaza City.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is vital to reach immediately a ceasefire in Gaza,\u201d that was necessary \u201cto avoid the death and destruction that a military operation against Gaza City would inevitably cause,\u201d Mr Guterres said in Japan.<\/p>\n
\u2013 Reuters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Israeli military maintained its pressure on Gaza City with heavy bombardments overnight, residents said, ahead of a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13598,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[9,10,13,14,3761,69,6,71,3857,11,12,15,16,5,7,8,65,66,67],"class_list":{"0":"post-13597","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-featured-news","11":"tag-featurednews","12":"tag-gaza-strip","13":"tag-hamas","14":"tag-headlines","15":"tag-israel","16":"tag-israel-hamas-conflict","17":"tag-latest-news","18":"tag-latestnews","19":"tag-main-news","20":"tag-mainnews","21":"tag-news","22":"tag-top-stories","23":"tag-topstories","24":"tag-world","25":"tag-world-news","26":"tag-worldnews"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13597","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13597"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13597\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13598"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}