Israeli military announces beginning of widescale ground offensive in Gaza
Israel’s army says it has initiated a major ground offensive from Gaza’s north to its south against Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups.
“Over the past day, regular and reserve forces launched a large-scale ground operation throughout the northern and southern Gaza Strip as part of the opening salvo of Operation Gideon,” an Israeli army statement said.
The air force launched attacks on “more than 670 Hamas terrorist targets” in Gaza, it added. “To date, the forces have eliminated dozens of terrorists, destroyed above and underground terrorist infrastructure, and captured controlled areas throughout the Gaza Strip.”
As we’ve been reporting, Israel’s attacks on Gaza have killed at least 135 people today.
Gaza ‘conditions on the ground are dangerous’: US envoy Witkoff
US President Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East says he believes “everyone is concerned about the humanitarian conditions in Gaza”.
“That said, it is a very complicated situation there,” he said in an interview with ABC News. “I think the issue now is how do we logistically get all of those [aid] trucks into Gaza, how do we set up the aid stations.”
Washington has been working on many initiatives, including mobile kitchens that are going to be sent into the Palestinian enclave, Witkoff said.
Israel has said it will begin to allow more aid trucks to enter the Strip, he added.
“But it is complicated. It is logistically complicated. And the conditions on the ground are dangerous. There are still many unexploded shells all over the place. So we have to be mindful of that.”
‘Struggling to get one meal per day’ in Gaza
Bullshit, the Aid delivery was working perfectly fine during the ceasefire. There's nothing complicated about it, stop supporting Israel's genocide and ethnic cleansing plans.
Truce talks in Doha include ‘unacceptable’ ideas: Hamas
Osama Hamdan, a senior Hamas leader, says some “unacceptable” proposals have been put forward during ceasefire talks in Qatar.
“We are still negotiating, and ideas that are unacceptable to us are being put forward, and we are also putting forward ideas,” Hamdan told Iran’s semiofficial Tasnim news agency. No final agreement has been reached, he added.
The release of an American-Israeli captive last week was an initiative by Hamas to accelerate the establishment of a ceasefire, he said. The Palestinian people will decide who their leaders will be, and the only way to achieve this is through elections, Hamdan added.
Far-right Israeli cabinet members saying ‘the quiet part out loud’ on captives
Netanyahu’s office has noted that there are negotiations for an end to the war but there are pretty strict conditions there: Hamas would need to completely disarm, lay down all of its weapons, and its fighters and members would be exiled outside of the Gaza Strip.
How that would work exactly is still a little bit unclear.
But also, according to Netanyahu, there are military objectives and goals that need to be achieved – which is why they are interested in prolonged fighting.
Meanwhile, members of Netanyahu’s right-wing government only want to see an expansion of the war, and they have said the quiet part out loud: that the captives are not the main goal for Israel any more, that the main goal for them is defeating Hamas no matter what the cost that Israel has to pay.
