Middle East: Israel begins major offensive in Gaza City

With Israel's offensive in Gaza City underway, DW spoke with Dan Stewart from the UK-based aid group Save the Children.

Stewart, speaking from Deir al-Balah south of Gaza City, said that the dire humanitarian situation has left many children traumatized, severely malnourished and too weak to cry.

A joint investigation from three media houses alleges that more than four out of five people killed in Gaza up until May 2025 were civilians.

The investigation by the Israeli-Palestinian publication +972 Magazine, the Hebrew-language Local Call and The Guardian analyzed data from a classified Israeli military database.

The database lists 8,900 militant fighters from Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad as dead or probably dead as of May 2025.

That represents only 17% of the 53,000 Palestinians killed in Israel's war in Gaza up until that time, meaning some 83% of deaths are civilians, the investigation found.

The figures "contradict by a huge margin the public statements of Israeli army and government officials throughout the war, which have generally claimed a 1:1 or 2:1 ratio of civilian to militant casualties," +972 Magazine writes.

In their articles on the investigation, the news organizations cited the Israeli military as saying the figures presented in the investigation were incorrect and didn't reflect the data available in the IDF's systems.

The death tolls published by the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry don't distinguish between civilians and militants.

Dozens of Palestinians were killed by Israeli strikes on Gaza on Thursday, according to local medics.

Israeli attacks killed 36 Palestinians, the AP news agency reported citing local hospitals.

Gaza's civil defense agency said 45 Palestinians died across the Gaza Strip in various Israeli attacks, including several casualties from a strike on Gaza City.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday that Israel will immediately begin negotiations to release hostages in Gaza and bring about "the end of the war under conditions acceptable to Israel."

It comes as the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) prepares to call up around 60,000 military reservists amid a fresh offensive in Gaza City.

"I have come to approve the IDF's plans to take control of Gaza City and defeat Hamas," Netanyahu said in a video statement.

"At the same time, I have instructed to immediately begin negotiations for the release of all our hostages and the end of the war under conditions acceptable to Israel."

On Monday, Hamas said it sent "a positive response" to a ceasefire plan put forward by international mediators Qatar and Egypt. Israel has not yet responded to the proposal.

The head of the UN's Palestinian relief agency, UNRWA, said many malnourished civilians will not survive Israel's new offensive in Gaza City.

"We have a population that is extremely weak that will be confronted with a new major military operation," Philippe Lazzarini told a press conference in Geneva.

"Many will simply not have the strength to undergo a new displacement."

UNRWA health centers in Gaza have reported a six-fold increase in the number of severely malnourished children since March.

"Many of them will not survive," Lazzarini said.

"It is a manufactured and fabricated famine. It is deliberate," he added. "Food has been used as an instrument of war."

Israel's new ground offensive in Gaza City threatens to displace Palestinians to areas that are unsafe, overcrowded and lack adequate supplies, a Palestinian NGO chief told DW.

"We have high concerns about the lives of tens of thousands of people who could be killed," Amjad Shawa, head of the Palestinian NGO Network, said from Gaza City.

"And at the same time, forcible displacement of about 1,000,000 Palestinians to the south area where it's no space in that area, no infrastructure, no facilities, no tents, nothing."

Shawa said there were already a large number of displaced Palestinians in the south of the Gaza Strip, and that ordering more Palestinians to evacuate south would exacerbate the humanitarian crisis there.

"Israelis are sending messages to go to an area called Al Mawasi, which is west of Khan Younis, which is overwhelmed by 600,000 people who are displaced from Rafah, from Khan Younis, and every day this area is under Israeli attack," Shawa said.

"It's an unsafe area and there is no space for any tents to be put there."

Shawa called on the international community to push for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.

"This is real time for the international community to act to stop this military operation and to go back to ceasefire negotiations in order to have an end to this war," he said.

Turkish ports have begun requiring vessels docking in their harbors to provide proof that they are not carrying weapons to Israel, shipping sources told news outlets.

While there appears to be no official statement on the practice, several sources told reporters that it has been verbally communicated to ports throughout Turkey.

Harbormasters are to ask for spoken, if not also written, confirmation that docking vessels are not bringing military equipment or hazardous materials to Israel.

Last year, Turkey severed its $7 billion economic relationship with Israel over the war in Gaza.

The UN's Palestinian relief agency (UNRWA) took to social media to decry how Israel's war in Gaza has disrupted the education of hundreds of thousands of children.

"Instead of learning, children spend their time searching for water and food," the agency wrote on X, noting that this coming fall marks the third school year that pupils and university students will miss.

 

Iran launched its first military drills since its 12-day war with Israel earlier this year, state media reported on Thursday.

The television report said that navy vessels were active in the Indian Ocean, launching missiles towards targets in the Gulf of Oman.

Such exercises are routine, but this most recent display is seen as a show of strength after Israel bombed a number of targets in the country, including nuclear sites.

Iranian naval vessels are also known to seize Western ships that stray into its waters following the breakdown of a 2015 nuclear deal that temporarily reduced tensions.

Hundreds of thousands of civilians who had sheltered in Gaza City were ordered to evacuate and seek refuge in southern Gaza on Thursday morning as Israel began its ground operations in Gaza City. 

For many, it is not the first time they have been displaced in recent months.

The military confirmed media reports that the offensive had begun, calling it the "preliminary" stage of a plan to control the entire city.

"We 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," Brigadier General Effie Defrin, Israel's military spokesperson, said.

In January, international bodies estimated that aerial attacks had destroyed 70-80% of Gaza City.

Defrin said that the city was still a "stronghold" for Hamas, the militant group whose October 7, 2023 terror attacks on Israeli civilians sparked the current conflict.

Hamas, in a statement on Telegram, accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of obstructing a ceasefire deal in favor of continuing a "brutal war against innocent civilians in Gaza City."

Ahead of the Gaza City ground operation, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for an immediate halt of hostilities in light of the multiple humanitarian crises already affecting civilians there.

"It is vital to reach immediately a ceasefire in Gaza," to avoid the death and destruction that such an operation will cause, Guterres said from a conference in Japan.

He also slammed the "illegal" plan to expand the construction of settlements in the occupied West Bank.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said that another forced displacement of civilians would "risk worsening an already catastrophic situation."

The IDF said late Wednesday that it would call up 60,000 reservists in light of the expanded operation in Gaza City. The plan also includes extending the period of service for the 20,000 reservists who have already been called up to active duty.

This is the largest call-up of reservists in months, and is seen as a sign that Israel will not give in to an international outcry to end the conflict that has killed tens of thousands of civilians, including what international organizations estimate to be 19,000 children.

The move, which is expected to receive the chief of staff's final approval soon, comes on the heels of mass rallies in Israel calling for a ceasefire and for the government to prioritize the release of hostages held by Hamas.

The UN Security Council is scheduled to discuss the Israeli military operation and the humanitarian situation in Gaza this afternoon.

On Thursday, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) confirmed it had begun its ground assault on Gaza City, aiming to control the entire area. To that end, around 60,000 Israeli reservists will soon be called up.

The UN had called on Israel to implement a ceasefire, citing the danger posed to civilians who have already lived under near-constant bombardment for almost two years.

DW will bring you the latest headlines and analysis from across the Middle East.