IDF Chief of Workers Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir has authorized the final define for the navy’s upcoming main offensive to overcome Gaza Metropolis, the navy stated Wednesday.
The approval for the expanded offensive got here days after the safety cupboard known as for the seizure of the Gaza Strip’s largest metropolis, and as Hamas condemned what it known as “aggressive” Israeli floor incursions into Gaza Metropolis.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s authorities has not supplied a exact timetable for when Israeli troops will enter Gaza Metropolis, the place an estimated a million Palestinians have taken refuge after fleeing earlier offensives.
The navy stated the “foremost idea for the IDF’s offensive plan in Gaza” was mentioned throughout a gathering Zamir held Wednesday morning with the Normal Workers Discussion board, together with different officers and Shin Guess representatives.
“Through the dialogue, the IDF’s actions to this point had been offered, together with the offensive within the Zeitoun space that started yesterday,” the navy stated, confirming that the IDF has begun new operations within the Gaza Metropolis neighborhood.
“As well as, the principle idea for the plan for the following steps within the Gaza Strip was offered and authorized, in accordance with the directives of the political management,” the IDF stated, referring to the government-ordered offensive towards Hamas in Gaza Metropolis, which isn’t set to start instantly.
IDF Chief of Workers Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir (heart) meets with high officers on August 13, 2025. (Israel Protection Forces)
Zamir had reportedly pushed again towards the plan to take over town, and has feuded lately with Protection Minister Israel Katz.
The IDF stated within the assembly Zamir “emphasised the significance of enhancing the readiness of the forces and preparedness for reserve call-up, whereas finishing up refreshers and offering respiratory room [for the soldiers] forward of the upcoming missions.”
‘Aggressive incursions’
In the meantime, Gaza’s Hamas-run civil protection company stated Israeli airstrikes on Gaza Metropolis have intensified in latest days, with the residential neighborhoods of Zeitoun and Sabra hit “with very heavy airstrikes focusing on civilian properties, presumably together with high-rise buildings.”
The Hamas-run Gaza well being ministry stated Wednesday that 123 individuals had been killed over the previous day, the very best 24-hour dying toll in per week, although the toll can’t be verified and doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants.
Israeli planes and tanks bombed jap areas of Gaza Metropolis closely, residents stated, with many properties destroyed within the Zeitoun and Shejaiya neighborhoods in a single day. Al-Ahli hospital stated 12 individuals had been killed in an airstrike on a house in Zeitoun.
Tanks additionally destroyed a number of homes within the east of Khan Younis in south Gaza, whereas within the heart, Israeli gunfire killed 9 aid-seekers in two separate incidents, Palestinian medics claimed. The IDF didn’t remark.
A Palestinian man reacts as medics transport casualties of Israeli strikes close to an support distribution heart within the Saftawi neighborhood, west of Jabalia within the northern Gaza Strip on August 13, 2025. (Bashar TALEB / AFP)
Ismail Al-Thawabta, director basic of the Hamas authorities media workplace in Gaza, instructed AFP on Wednesday that “the Israeli occupation forces proceed to hold out aggressive incursions in Gaza Metropolis.”
“These assaults symbolize a harmful escalation aimed toward imposing a brand new actuality on the bottom by pressure, by way of a scorched-earth coverage and the entire destruction of civilian property,” he charged.
Sabah Fatoum, 51, who lives in a tent within the Tal al-Hawa neighborhood of Gaza Metropolis, instructed AFP by telephone that “the explosions are large” within the space.
There are “many airstrikes and tanks are advancing within the southern space of Tal al-Hawa with drones above our heads,” she stated.
“The tanks are nonetheless there, and I noticed dozens of civilians fleeing” to the west of town, she added.
Broken buildings within the Gaza Strip, seen from southern Israel, August 13, 2025. (AP Picture/Ariel Schalit)
In keeping with the Hamas well being ministry, not less than 235 individuals together with 106 kids have died of starvation because the conflict started in October 2023, with many instances recorded in latest weeks.
IDF says some 320 vans entered Tuesday
Because the dire humanitarian state of affairs in Gaza continues to worsen, particularly with a record-nearing heatwave hitting the area, efforts to extend support entry into the Strip have continued, with the Israel’s Coordinator of Authorities Actions (COGAT) saying Wednesday that almost 320 vans carrying humanitarian support entered the Gaza Strip on Tuesday by way of the Kerem Shalom and Zikim crossings.
In keeping with COGAT, some 320 vans’ price of support had been additionally picked up by the United Nations and different worldwide organizations from the Gaza sides of the crossings to be distributed.
Vehicles carrying humanitarian support for Palestinians in Gaza transfer alongside the border with the Gaza Strip in southern Israel, Wednesday, August 13, 2025. (AP/Ariel Schalit)
Moreover, three tankers of “UN gasoline entered for the operation of important humanitarian methods” entered Gaza, COGAT provides. It additionally says it facilitated the entry and exit of support employees rotating out and in of Gaza.
The UN has stated 600 vans of support should be distributed every day at minimal to feed the Strip’s roughly two million individuals.
The IDF additionally stated plane from Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Germany, Belgium, France and Italy airdropped 119 pallets of humanitarian support within the Gaza Strip on Wednesday. Every pallet comprises round one ton of meals.
Israel re-adopted a coverage of permitting support airdrops on July 26, amid mounting worldwide criticism over the starvation disaster in Gaza. However airdrops are solely in a position to ship a small fraction of what can come into Gaza by land. In addition they pose security dangers for the civilians who could be hit by the packages from above.
The conflict started on October 7, 2023, when hundreds of Hamas-led terrorists invaded Israel, killing some 1,200 individuals and taking 251 hostages.
Terror teams in Gaza nonetheless maintain 50 hostages, of whom twenty are believed to be alive, whereas twenty-eight have been confirmed useless, and the federal government has expressed “grave concern” concerning the remaining two.
Three-year-old Jourieh Razayneh wipes sweat from her brow in the summertime warmth at her household’s tent in Gaza Metropolis, August 12, 2025. (AP Picture/Jehad Alshrafi)
The Hamas-run Gaza well being ministry says greater than 60,000 individuals within the Strip have been killed or are presumed useless within the combating to this point, although the toll can’t be verified and doesn’t differentiate between civilians and fighters. Israel says it has killed some 20,000 combatants in battle as of January and one other 1,600 terrorists inside Israel in the course of the October 7 onslaught.
Israel has stated it seeks to attenuate civilian fatalities and stresses that Hamas makes use of Gaza’s civilians as human shields, combating from civilian areas together with properties, hospitals, faculties and mosques.
Israel’s toll within the floor offensive towards Hamas in Gaza and in navy operations alongside the border with the Strip stands at 459. The toll contains two cops and three Protection Ministry civilian contractors.
