Israel Defense Forces approve Gaza takeover plan
IDF Chief of the General Staff Eyal Zamir made the decision during a discussion with senior military and security officials. The IDF said he emphasized the importance of increasing troop readiness and preparedness for reserve recruitment ahead of the upcoming missions.
An Israeli media outlet quoted sources as saying that the military takeover will begin after residents of Gaza City are evacuated, which is expected to happen by October 7.
Meanwhile, Hamas announced on Tuesday that it has sent a delegation to Egypt to hold talks with senior Egyptian government officials. An Arab media outlet said the talks are aimed at resuming ceasefire negotiations. Those negotiations have been stalled since the end of last month.
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Japan Times
2 hours ago
- Japan Times
Turned back from Gaza, aid shipments languish in warehouses and on roadsides
Boxes of Gaza-bound aid turned back by Israel on Sunday languished atop a truck and flatbed trailer parked meters from its border with Egypt, as exasperated drivers and U.N. officials criticized delays in sending food and medicine to the enclave. Seven aid officials and three truckers listed a host of obstacles, ranging from rejections of shipments for minor packing and paperwork issues to heavy scrutiny over possible dual military use for a range of goods, as well as short working hours at the Israeli border crossing. The supplies on the stalled truck and trailer outside Egypt's Rafah border crossing on Monday carried blue logos of the World Health Organization and labels describing contents like topical medications and suction devices to clean wounds. A WHO employee working at the border said the cargo was blocked for carrying "illegal medicines." The reason as to why the trucks were not allowed to enter Gaza could not be independently verified, and the Israeli military authority in charge of coordinating aid did not respond to a question about why they were not let into the enclave. Reporters visited Egypt's border with Gaza on Monday on a trip organized by the Elders, a group of former world leaders set up by late South African President Nelson Mandela that backs a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Some Elders members have been highly critical of Israel's conduct in Gaza, including former Irish President Mary Robinson and former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark, who joined the border trip. A truck carrying humanitarian aid from the World Health Organization near the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip, in Rafah, Egypt, on Monday. | REUTERS Responding to international outrage sparked by images of starving Gazans, Israel on July 27 announced measures to let more aid into Gaza. But aid agencies say only a fraction of what they send is getting in. Israel strongly denies limiting aid supplies. Speaking to reporters at the Rafah crossing, Clark expressed shock at the amount of aid turned back at the border. "To see this crossing, which should be a place where people interact with each other, where people can come and go, where people aren't under blockade, where people who are ill can leave to come out — to see it just silent for the people, it's absolutely shocking for us,' Clark said. 'Bureaucratic hurdles, delays' Approvals and clearance procedures that got a shipment through the Rafah border crossing "within a few days" of arrival in Egypt during a ceasefire earlier in the war now took "minimum one month,' according to the WHO employee at the border. On Monday, the Hamas-run Gaza government media office said at least 1,334 trucks had entered Gaza through all land crossings, including from Egypt, since the Israeli measures announced on July 27, but this was far short of the 9,000 that would have gone in if 600 trucks had entered per day. The United States has said a minimum of 600 trucks per day are needed to feed Gaza's population. The reasons for the delays described in this article or the specific figures supplied by those interviewed could not be independently confirmed. A displaced Palestinian boy with a package of food supplies after collecting them from aid trucks that entered Gaza through Israel on Wednesday. | REUTERS Asked for its response to allegations of curbs on aid flows, the Israeli military agency that coordinates aid, COGAT, said Israel invests "considerable efforts' in aid distribution. It said about 300 trucks had been transferred daily in "recent weeks," mostly carrying food, via all land crossings. "Despite the claims made, the State of Israel allows and facilitates the provision of humanitarian assistance to the Gaza Strip without any quantitative limit on the number of aid trucks entering the Gaza Strip,' COGAT said. The agency did not address specific questions about aid shipment volumes. In mid-July, Israel introduced a requirement that shipments of humanitarian aid arriving from Egypt undergo customs clearance. According to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Israel's move led to "additional bureaucratic hurdles, delays, and costs for humanitarian organizations." U.N. agencies were exempted from customs clearance from Egypt from July 27 to Aug. 3, OCHA said in a report on Aug. 6. While not officially extended, the exemption still appeared to be in place, it said. Other international NGOs could be exempted only on a case-by-case basis and only for health items. More than 200 Gazans have died of malnutrition or starvation in the war, according to Palestinian health authorities, adding to the over 61,000 dead they say have been killed by military action. The U.N. human rights office and several expert studies have said the number is probably an undercount. Israel has disputed the Gaza health ministry figures, which do not distinguish between fighters and civilians, and says at least a third of the fatalities are militants. On Monday, COGAT said a review by its medical experts found the number of deaths reported by the Gaza health ministry due to malnutrition was inflated and most of those "allegedly dying from malnutrition" had preexisting conditions. A warehouse of rejected goods Drivers coming from Egypt cannot go directly to the Gaza side of the Rafah crossing, which had been operated by the Hamas-run border authority but is now closed. Instead, they route to the Israeli crossing of Kerem Shalom, about 3 kilometers to the south, where shipments undergo checks. A warehouse for aid deliveries at a logistics site run by the Egyptian Red Crescent, outside Arish, Egypt, on Monday. | REUTERS Kamel Atteiya Mohamed, an Egyptian truck driver, estimated that of the 200 or 300 trucks trying to get through this route every day, only 30 to 50 make it. "They tell you, for example, that the pallet doesn't have a sticker, the pallet is tilted, or the pallet is open from the top. This is no reason for us to return it,' he said. He added that while the Egyptian crossing was open day and night, drivers often arrived at Kerem Shalom only to find it closed, as it does not normally operate beyond weekday business hours. "Every day it's like this,' he said. "Honestly, we're fed up.' While COGAT did not address specific questions about the driver's remarks and allegations of inflexible working hours, it said that "hundreds of truckloads of aid still await collection by the U.N. and international organizations" on the Palestinian side of the border crossings. A logistics site set up by the Egyptian Red Crescent near El Arish town, 40 km from the border, where shipments coming from Egypt to Gaza are loaded, has a tarp tent warehouse devoted to goods turned back from the border. A reporter saw rows of white oxygen tanks, as well as wheelchairs, car tires and cartons labeled as containing generators and first-aid kits and with logos of aid groups from countries such as Luxembourg and Kuwait, among others. Reporters were not able to verify when the items at the Red Crescent site were turned back or on what grounds. Aid workers describe such rejections as routine. Speaking at the meeting with the Elders, one World Food Program worker said that only 73 of the 400 trucks the agency had sent since July 27 had made it in. U.N. Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA has not been allowed to send aid into Gaza since March. The OCHA Aug. 6 report said no shelter materials had been allowed to enter Gaza since March 2 and those available on the local market were "prohibitively expensive and limited in quantity." The WHO employee who works on the border said the truck and trailer were among three trucks that had been turned back on Sunday. A manifest given for their cargo included urine drainage bags, iodine, plasters and sutures.
Yomiuri Shimbun
5 hours ago
- Yomiuri Shimbun
Israeli Gunfire Kills at Least 25 in Gaza as Netanyahu Says He Will Allow Palestinians to Leave
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Israeli gunfire killed at least 25 people seeking aid in Gaza on Wednesday, health officials and witnesses said, while Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu again called for what he refers to as the voluntary migration of Palestinians from the war-ravaged territory. Netanyahu wants to realize U.S. President Donald Trump's vision of relocating much of Gaza's population of over 2 million people through what he refers to as 'voluntary migration' — and what critics have warned could be ethnic cleansing. 'Give them the opportunity to leave! First, from combat zones, and also from the strip if they want,' Netanyahu said in an interview aired Tuesday with Israeli TV station i24 to discuss the planned offensive in areas that include Gaza City, where hundreds of thousands of displaced people shelter. 'We are not pushing them out but allowing them to leave.' Witnesses and staff at Nasser and Awda hospitals, which received the bodies, said people were shot on their way to aid distribution sites or while awaiting convoys entering Gaza. Efforts to revive ceasefire talks Efforts to revive ceasefire talks have resumed after apparently breaking down last month. Hamas and Egyptian officials met Wednesday in Cairo, according to Hamas official Taher al-Nounou. Israel has no plans to send its negotiating team to talks in Cairo, Netanyahu's office said. Israel's plans to widen its military offensive against Hamas to parts of Gaza it does not yet control have sparked condemnation at home and abroad, and could be intended to raise pressure on Hamas to reach a ceasefire. The militants still hold 50 hostages taken in the Oct. 7, 2023 attack that sparked the war. Israel believes around 20 are still alive. Families fear a new offensive endangers them. When asked by i24 News if the window had closed on a partial ceasefire deal, Netanyahu responded that he wanted all hostages back, alive and dead. Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty told reporters that Cairo is still trying to advance an earlier proposal for an initial 60-day ceasefire, the release of some hostages and an influx of humanitarian aid before further talks on a lasting truce. Hamas says it will only release the remaining hostages in return for the release of Palestinians imprisoned by Israel, a lasting ceasefire and an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza. The militant group has refused to disarm. Meanwhile, the Palestinian Authority and Arab countries condemned Netanyahu's remark to i24 News that he was 'very' attached to the vision of a Greater Israel. He did not elaborate, but supporters of the idea believe that Israel should control not only the occupied West Bank but parts of Arab countries. South Sudan calls reports of resettlement talks baseless Israel and South Sudan are in talks about relocating Palestinians to the war-torn East African nation, The Associated Press reported Tuesday. The office of Israel's deputy foreign minister, Sharren Haskel, said she was arriving in South Sudan for meetings in the first visit there by a senior Israeli government official, but she did not plan to broach the subject of moving Palestinians. South Sudan's ministry of foreign affairs in a statement called reports that it was engaging in discussions with Israel about resettling Palestinians baseless. The AP previously reported that the United States and Israel have reached out to officials of three East African governments to discuss using their territories as potential destinations for Palestinians uprooted from Gaza. Killed while seeking aid Among those killed while seeking aid were 14 Palestinians in the Teina area approximately 3 kilometers (1.8 miles) from a food distribution site run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, according to staff at Nasser hospital. Hashim Shamalah said Israeli troops fired toward them as people tried to get through. Many were shot and fell while fleeing, he said. Israeli gunfire killed five other Palestinians while trying to reach another GHF distribution site in the Netzarim corridor area, according to Awda hospital and witnesses. The Israeli military said it wasn't aware of any casualties from Israeli fire in that area. GHF said there were no incidents at or near its sites Wednesday. The U.S. and Israel support GHF, an American contractor, as an alternative to the United Nations, which they claim allows Hamas to siphon off aid. The U.N., which has delivered aid throughout Gaza for decades when conditions allow, denies the allegations. Aid convoys from other groups travel within 100 meters (328 feet) of GHF sites and draw crowds. An overwhelming majority of violent incidents over the past few weeks have been related to those convoys, the GHF said. Israeli fire killed at least six other people waiting for aid trucks close to the Morag corridor, which separates parts of southern Gaza, Nasser hospital said. Israel says it killed a Hamas militant who took hostages The Israeli military said Wednesday that it killed last week a Hamas militant who took part in the 2023 attack that started the war. It blamed Abdullah Saeed Abd al-Baqin for participating in the abduction of three Israeli hostages. The Hamas-led attack abducted 251 people and killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians. Israel's air and ground offensive has since displaced most of Gaza's population, destroyed vast areas and pushed the territory toward famine. The offensive has killed more than 61,700 Palestinians, according to Gaza's Health Ministry, which does not say how many were fighters or civilians but says around half were women and children. The ministry is part of the Hamas-run government and staffed by medical professionals. The U.N. and independent experts consider it the most reliable source on war casualties. Israel disputes its figures but has not provided its own. Palestinian fatally shot in West Bank violence An Israeli settler shot dead a Palestinian on Wednesday in the occupied West Bank, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. The Israeli military said dozens of Palestinians hurled rocks toward an off-duty soldier and another person carrying out 'engineering works' near the village of Duma, lightly wounding them. It said the soldier initially fired warning shots, then opened fire in self-defense. The Health Ministry identified the deceased as Thamin Dawabshe, 35, a distant relative of a family targeted in a 2015 firebombing in the village by a settler. That attack killed a toddler and his parents. The attacker was convicted and handed three life sentences. The West Bank has seen a rise in settler violence as well as Palestinian attacks since the start of the war in Gaza, and the Israeli military has carried out major military operations there. Rights groups and Palestinians say the military often turns a blind eye to violent settlers or intervenes to protect them.
Japan Today
10 hours ago
- Japan Today
Israel pounds Gaza City; 123 killed in last 24 hours
Smoke rises after an Israeli air strike in north Gaza, as seen from Israel's border with Gaza, Israel August 12, 2025. REUTERS/Ammar Awad By Nidal al-Mughrabi and Emily Rose Israel's military pounded Gaza City on Wednesday prior to a planned takeover, with another 123 people killed in the last day according to the Gaza health ministry, while militant group Hamas held further talks with Egyptian mediators. The 24-hour death toll was the worst in a week and added to the massive fatalities from the nearly two-year war that has shattered the enclave housing more than 2 million Palestinians. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reiterated an idea - also enthusiastically floated by U.S. President Donald Trump - that Palestinians should simply leave. "They're not being pushed out, they'll be allowed to exit," he told Israeli television channel i24NEWS. "All those who are concerned for the Palestinians and say they want to help the Palestinians should open their gates and stop lecturing us." Arabs and many world leaders are aghast at the idea of displacing the Gaza population, which Palestinians say would be like another "Nakba" (catastrophe) when hundreds of thousands fled or were forced out during a 1948 war. Israel's planned re-seizure of Gaza City - which it took in the early days of the war before withdrawing - is probably weeks away, officials say. That means a ceasefire is still possible though talks have been floundering and conflict still rages. Israeli planes and tanks bombed eastern areas of Gaza City heavily, residents said, with many homes destroyed in the Zeitoun and Shejaia neighbourhoods overnight. Al-Ahli hospital said 12 people were killed in an airstrike on a home in Zeitoun. Tanks also destroyed several houses in the east of Khan Younis in south Gaza too, while in the centre Israeli gunfire killed nine aid-seekers in two separate incidents, Palestinian medics said. Israel's military did not comment. Eight more people, including three children, have died of starvation and malnutrition in Gaza in the past 24 hours, the territory's health ministry said. That took the total to 235, including 106 children, since the war began. Israel disputes those malnutrition and hunger figures reported by the health ministry in the Hamas-run enclave. Hamas chief negotiator Khalil Al-Hayya's meetings with Egyptian officials in Cairo on Wednesday were to focus on stopping the war, delivering aid and "ending the suffering of our people in Gaza," Hamas official Taher al-Nono said in a statement. CEASEFIRE POSSIBILITIES Egyptian security sources said the talks would also discuss the possibility of a comprehensive ceasefire that would see Hamas relinquish governance in Gaza and concede its weapons. A Hamas official told Reuters the group was open to all ideas if Israel ends the war and pulls out. However, "Laying down arms before the occupation is dismissed is impossible," the official, who asked not to be named, told Reuters. Netanyahu's plan to expand military control over Gaza, which Israeli sources said could be launched in October, has heightened global outcry over the widespread devastation, displacement and hunger in the enclave. Twenty-four nations this week decried the "unimaginable levels" of suffering and urged Israel to allow unrestricted aid. Israel accuses Hamas of stealing aid and says it has taken steps to increase supplies, including daily combat pauses in some areas and protected routes for convoys. The Israeli military on Wednesday said that nearly 320 trucks entered Gaza through the Kerem Shalom and Zikim crossings and that a further nearly 320 trucks were collected and distributed by the U.N. and international organizations in the past 24 hours along with three tankers of fuel and 97 pallets of air-dropped aid. But the U.N. and Palestinians say aid remains far from sufficient. The war began on October 7, 2023, when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages, according to Israeli figures. Israel's offensive against Hamas in Gaza since then has killed more than 61,000 Palestinians, according to local health officials. Arab states and much of the international community want post-war Gaza to be governed by the Palestinian Authority, which exercises limited governance in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. The authority's foreign minister, Varsen Aghabekian Shahin, told reporters it was ready to assume full responsibility in Gaza. Hamas would have no role and be required to hand over arms, she added, calling for an international peacekeeping force and withdrawal by Israel. Hamas says it is ready to quit Gaza governance for a non-partisan technocratic entity agreed by all Palestinian parties. Israel says it does not trust the PA to rule Gaza. © Thomson Reuters 2025.
