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Israel Begins First Stages of Planned Gaza City Offensive, Says Military Spokesman
An Israeli soldier stands on a tank on the Israeli side of the border with Gaza, Israel, Aug. 20, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen
Israel has entered the first stages of its planned offensive to take control of Gaza City after a clash with the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas and already has a hold on the outskirts of the city, Israeli military spokesman Effie Defrin told reporters on Wednesday.
The announcement came as Israel‘s military called up tens of thousands of reservists on Wednesday in preparation for the operation in Gaza City, the enclave’s biggest urban center, and as the Israeli government considered a new proposal for a ceasefire after nearly two years of war.
However, a military official briefing reporters said reserve soldiers would not report for duty until September, an interval that gives mediators some time to bridge gaps between Hamas and Israel over truce terms.
The official said that as part of planning for a new offensive in the Gaza Strip, there would be five divisions operating in the enclave, but most reservists were not expected to serve in combat in Gaza City.
“We will be moving into a new phase of combat, a gradual, precise, and targeted operation in and around Gaza City, which currently serves as Hamas’ main military and governing stronghold,” the official said.
Israel’s security cabinet, chaired by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, approved a plan this month to expand the campaign in Gaza with the aim of taking Gaza City, where Israeli forces waged fierce urban warfare with Hamas in the early stages of the war. Israel currently holds about 75 percent of the Gaza Strip.
Many of Israel’s closest Western allies have urged the government to reconsider, expressing concern about the humanitarian situation in Gaza.
The war in Gaza began on Oct. 7, 2023, when Palestinian terrorists led by Hamas attacked southern Israeli communities near the border, killing some 1,200 people, mainly civilians, and taking 251 hostages including children into Gaza.
Israel responded with a military campaign aimed at freeing the hostages and dismantling Hamas’s military and governing capabilities in neighboring Gaza.
Hamas has accepted a proposal put forward by Arab mediators for a 60-day ceasefire that would involve releasing some of the remaining hostages and freeing Palestinian prisoners in Israel.
The Israeli government, which has said all the 50 remaining hostages must be released at once, is studying the proposal. Israeli authorities believe that 20 hostages are still alive.
Many Gazans and foreign leaders fear a storming of Gaza City would cause significant casualties. Israel says it will help civilians leave battle zones before any assault begins.
ISRAELI TROOPS, HAMAS FIGHTERS CLASH
Israeli troops clashed on Wednesday with more than 15 Hamas terrorists who emerged from tunnel shafts and attacked with gunfire and anti-tank missiles near Khan Younis, south of Gaza City, severely wounding one soldier and lightly wounding two others, an Israeli military official said.
In a statement, Hamas’s Al-Qassam Brigades confirmed carrying out a raid on Israeli troops southeast of Khan Younis and engaging Israeli troops at point-blank range. It said one fighter blew himself up among the soldiers, causing casualties, during an attack that lasted several hours.
Most Gazans have been displaced multiple times during the conflict and forced into densely packed areas along the Mediterranean coast, including in Gaza City in the enclave’s north.
Israeli officials have said evacuation orders would be issued to Gaza City residents before any force moves in.
The Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem, which oversees Gaza‘s only Catholic Church, located in Gaza City, said it had received reports that neighborhoods near the small parish had started to receive evacuation notices.
Hamas, an Islamist movement that has ruled Gaza for almost two decades, has been severely weakened by the war. The Israeli military says Hamas has been reduced to a guerrilla force.
The Israeli military official who briefed reporters on Wednesday said Hamas had been trying to regroup and re-form in Gaza City in a more organized manner.
Hamas has said it would release all remaining hostages in exchange for an end to war. Israel says it will not end the war before Hamas disarms.
Opinion polls show strong Israeli public support for ending the war if it ensures the release of the hostages, and a rally in Tel Aviv urging the government to pursue such a deal drew a huge crowd on Saturday.
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German Soccer Team Honors Anniversary of Murdered Hamas Hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin’s Death
A flag drawing awareness to Hamas hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin displayed outside the home stadium of Werder Bremen on July 4, 2024. Photo: Screenshot
The German professional soccer team SV Werder Bremen paid tribute to murdered American-Israeli Hersh Goldberg-Polin in a social media post on the first anniversary of his death while in Hamas captivity.
On Tuesday, the German team shared on Instagram a photo of two tifos displayed by German soccer fans during a match last year that said “Shalom, Salam, Peace” and “May Your Memory Be A Revolution, Achi!” The Hebrew word for “brother” is “achi.” Soccer fans in the stands also raised a giant photo of 23-year-old Goldberg-Polin, who was a big fan of the German club.
In the Instagram post, SV Werder Bremen wrote in German: “SV Werder remembers Hersh Goldberg-Polin. This is the first anniversary of the Jewish death of Hersh, who Hamas murdered along with five other hostages after eleven months of captivity. You remain in our hearts, achi!”
Goldberg-Polin was abducted on Oct. 7, 2023, while at the Nova Music Festival in Re’im, Israel. He and five additional hostages – Eden Yerushalmi, 24, Carmel Gat, 40, Almog Sarusi, 27, Alexander Lobanov, 32, and Sergeant Ori Danino, 25 – were murdered in a Hamas terror tunnel in the Gaza Strip after 328 days in captivity. Their bodies were found by the Israel Defense Forces in a tunnel in the southern Gaza city of Rafah in August 2024. Autopsies showed that they faced torture and starvation, according to reports. Hamas-led terrorists abducted 251 people during their deadly rampage across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
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Irish Author Sally Rooney Vows to Donate Proceeds of Work to UK Terror Group Palestine Action
Author Sally Rooney in an interview with “PBS NewsHour.” Photo: Screenshot.
Award-winning Irish author Sally Rooney said on Saturday that she will give proceeds from her books, as well as two BBC adaptations of them, to support Palestine Action, an anti-Israel group that was proscribed as a terrorist organization in the United Kingdom last month.
The writer, who is a longtime supporter of boycotts against Israel, made the announcement in an opinion piece for The Irish Times, in which she proclaimed clear support for the designated terror group. “Like the hundreds of protesters arrested last weekend — I too support Palestine Action. If this makes me a ‘supporter of terror’ under UK law, so be it,” she wrote.
“My books, at least for now, are still published in Britain, and are widely available in bookshops and even supermarkets. In recent years the UK’s state broadcaster has also televised two fine adaptations of my novels [‘Normal People’ and ‘Conversations With Friends’] and therefore regularly pays me residual fees,” she added. “I want to be clear that I intend to use these proceeds of my work, as well as my public platform generally, to go on supporting Palestine Action and direct action against genocide in whatever way I can.”
Being a member of Palestine Action or expressing support for the group is a criminal offense in the UK under the Terrorism Act, punishable by up to 14 years in prison. The group was proscribed in early July after admitting that its activists broke into a Royal Air Force base in southern England, spray-painted two jets with red paint, and damaged the jets with crowbars. The vandalism, done in protest of Britain’s support for Israel, resulted in roughly $9.5 million worth of damage, police said. Many of the group’s supporters were recently arrested at a pro-Palestine Action protest on Aug. 9 in Parliament Square, London.
Palestine Action has also claimed responsibility for other incidents targeting companies in the UK that have ties to Israel. The group accuses the British government of being complicit in alleged Israeli war crimes in the Gaza Strip.
In the piece published on Saturday, Rooney – the best-selling author of Beautiful World, Where Are You and most recently Intermezzo – further said about Palestine Action: “We owe their courageous activists our gratitude and solidarity. And by now, almost two years into a live-streamed genocide, we owe the people of Palestine more than mere words.” She said she would gladly publish her support for Palestine Action in a UK newspaper, “but that would now be illegal.”
Rooney also claimed the British government “has willingly stripped its own citizens of basic rights and freedoms, including the right to express and read dissenting opinions, in order to protect its relationship with Israel.” She added, “The ramifications for cultural and intellectual life in the UK … are and will be profound.”
In 2021, Rooney refused to sell the Hebrew translation rights of Beautiful World, Where Are You? to an Israeli publisher because of her support for the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel. In 2024, she was one of more than 1,000 authors who vowed to boycott Israeli publishers and institutions. She was also among the many celebrities who called for a ceasefire to end the Israel-Hamas war weeks after the latter’s invasion of and massacre across southern Israeli communities on Oct. 7, 2023.
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Trump Administration Imposes New Sanctions on Four ICC Judges, Prosecutors
A general view of the International Criminal Court, in The Hague, Netherlands, March 12, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Wolfgang Rattay
President Donald Trump‘s administration on Wednesday imposed sanctions on two judges and two prosecutors at the International Criminal Court, as Washington ramped up its pressure on the war tribunal over its targeting of Israeli leaders and a past decision to investigate US officials.
In a statement, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio called the court “a national security threat that has been an instrument for lawfare” against the United States and Israel.
Washington designated Nicolas Yann Guillou of France, Nazhat Shameem Khan of Fiji, Mame Mandiaye Niang of Senegal, and Kimberly Prost of Canada, according to the US Treasury and State Department. All officials have been involved in cases linked to Israel and the United States.
“United States has been clear and steadfast in our opposition to the ICC’s politicization, abuse of power, disregard for our national sovereignty, and illegitimate judicial overreach,” Rubio said.
The second round of sanctions comes less than three months after the administration took the unprecedented step of slapping sanctions on four separate ICC judges. It represents a serious escalation that will likely impede the functioning of the court and the prosecutor’s office as they deal with major cases, including war crime allegations against Russia over its invasion of Ukraine.
The ICC, which had slammed the move in June as an attempt to undermine the independence of the judicial institution, and the office of the prosecutor, did not have immediate comment.
ICC judges issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, former Israeli defense chief Yoav Gallant, and Hamas leader Ibrahim al-Masri last November for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity during the Gaza conflict. Israeli officials have adamantly denied the allegations, noting they’re targeting terrorists who attacked Israel first and embed their military infrastructure among civilian areas.
In March 2020, prosecutors opened an investigation in Afghanistan that included looking into possible crimes by US troops, but since 2021, it has deprioritized the role of the US and focused on alleged crimes committed by the Afghan government and the Taliban forces.
The ICC, which was established in 2002, has international jurisdiction to prosecute genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes in member states or if a situation is referred by the U.N. Security Council.
Although the ICC has jurisdiction over war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide in its 125 member countries, some nations, including the US, China, Russia, and Israel, do not recognize its authority.
It has high-profile war crimes investigations under way into the Israel-Hamas conflict and Russia’s war in Ukraine, as well as in Sudan, Myanmar, the Philippines, and Venezuela.
The sanctions freeze any US assets the individuals may have and essentially cut them off from the US financial system.
Guillou is an ICC judge who presided over a pre-trial panel that issued the arrest warrant for Netanyahu. Khan and Niang are the court’s two deputy prosecutors.
Netanyahu’s office issued a statement welcoming the US sanctions.
Canadian Judge Kimberly Prost served on an ICC appeals chamber that, in March 2020, unanimously authorized the ICC prosecutor to investigate alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Afghanistan since 2003, including examining the role of US service members.
Global Affairs Canada and the office of Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the ICC sanctions, including against Prost.
The Trump administration‘s dislike of the court goes back to his first term. In 2020, Washington imposed sanctions on then-prosecutor Fatou Bensouda and one of her top aides over the court’s work on Afghanistan.