An Israeli operation to occupy Gaza City would be a \u201cdeath sentence\u201d for the remaining living Israeli hostages held in Gaza, relatives of the hostages have said, as the Red Cross and UN warned of a looming catastrophe for the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians living there.<\/p>\n
Opposition to a new operation \u2013 repeatedly \u201capproved\u201d by Israeli figures in recent days \u2013 is growing inside Israel and internationally. Calling for an immediate ceasefire, the UN secretary general, Ant\u00f3nio Guterres, warned of the \u201cmassive death and destruction that a military operation against Gaza would inevitably cause\u201d.<\/p>\n
Christian Cardon, the chief spokesperson for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), said: \u201cThe intensification of hostilities in Gaza means more killing, more displacement, more destruction and more panic. Gaza is a closed space, from which nobody can escape \u2026 and where access to health care, food and safe water is dwindling. Meanwhile, the security of humanitarians is getting worse by the hour. This is intolerable.\u201d<\/p>\n
On Thursday, the IDF said medical officials and aid groups in the northern part of the territory had been told \u201cto prepare for the population\u2019s movement to the southern Gaza Strip\u201d.<\/p>\n
Aid organisations say Israel has made negligible efforts to significantly increase humanitarian assistance to Gaza to the levels needed by the population, prompting a warning from the French president, Emmanuel Macron, of the danger of a \u201ctrue disaster\u201d.<\/p>\n
The families of Israeli hostages held a press conference to call for Israel to agree to a ceasefire deal \u2013 already accepted by Hamas<\/a> and Palestinian Islamic Jihad \u2013 which would result in half of the remaining 20 surviving hostages being released.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re a step away from a total torpedoing\u201d of a deal, said Lishay Miran Lavi, whose husband, Omri, is thought to still be alive in captivity. \u201cThere is an agreement on the table that could save the lives of hostages and return the dead for proper burial.<\/p>\n \u201cHamas has agreed, but the prime minister\u2019s office is working to sabotage it, which would sentence the living hostages to death and the dead to disappearance \u2026 The public demands the return of the hostages and an end to the war, which has lost all sense. You cannot conduct a 22-month war whose sole purpose is to preserve political power.\u201d<\/p>\n Representatives from hostage families referred sceptically to the Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu\u2019s repeated promises that Israel is close to victory.<\/p>\n Palestinians have already begun to head south amid Israel\u2019s warnings of further military action in Gaza City. Photograph: Dawoud Abu Alkas\/Reuters<\/p>\n Israel\u2019s increasing defiance of international opinion has pushed it ever closer to the status of a pariah state, both for the destruction and mass starvation it has visited on Gaza<\/a> in almost two years of war, and for its approval on Wednesday of a massive illegal settlement<\/a> aimed at destroying any possibility of a future Palestinian state. The approval was described by the British foreign secretary, David Lammy, as a \u201cflagrant breach\u201d of international law.<\/p>\n Netanyahu\u2019s plans for a major new offensive have prompted large-scale demonstrations in Israel. About 400,000 joined a protest on Sunday and more demonstrations are planned for this weekend.<\/p>\n A weakened Netanyahu appears to have bent to the demands of far-right minority parties in his fragile coalition who have called for the conquest of Gaza and threatened to collapse the government in the event of a ceasefire deal.<\/p>\n The Israeli military bombarded Gaza City overnight, a day after it was announced that 60,000 reservists were being called up<\/a>. A military official said most reservists would not serve in combat, giving strength to the argument that at least some of Israel\u2019s recent statements amount to posturing against the background of complex and continuing ceasefire talks.<\/p>\n Calling up tens of thousands of reservists is 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