Report: Israel’s military set to capture Gaza, section by section

: World Tribune; 23 March 2025; Hits: 13

by WorldTribune Staff, March 23, 2025 Real World News

Israel’s defense minister on Friday said his forces are prepared to systematically take Gaza one piece at a time.

“If the Hamas terror organization continues to refuse to release the hostages, I have instructed the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to capture additional areas, evacuate the population, and expand the security zone around Gaza … through permanent control of the area by Israel,” Defense Minister Israel Katz said in a statement. “The longer Hamas continues its refusal, the more and more land it will lose that will be added to Israel.”

After resuming air strikes on Tuesday, Israeli ground forces on Wednesday retook much of the Netzarim Corridor in central Gaza and on Thursday entered the cities of Beit Lahiya in the north of the strip and Khan Younis and Rafah in the south, according to the IDF.

Katz said Hamas must release the remaining 59 hostages in Gaza, 24 of them presumed alive, as part of a temporary U.S.-backed ceasefire agreement.

Katz added that Israel “will intensify the fighting” and expand the ground campaign in Gaza “until the hostages are released and Hamas is defeated” while also advancing U.S. President Donald Trump’s idea of a “voluntary transfer” of Gaza’s population abroad.

Katz advised Hamas to “Take the advice of the U.S. president. Return the hostages, remove Hamas and other options will be open to you — including leaving to other places in the world for those who wish.”

“The alternative is total destruction and devastation,” promised Katz.

Israeli Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed on Tuesday that, “Israel will fight, and Israel will win.”

“We will bring our people home and we will destroy Hamas,” Netanyahu said in a statement. “We will not relent until we achieve all these vital goals and we will not rest until we give our country a future of peace, prosperity and hope.”

Amir Avivi, a former Israeli brigadier general who has advised Israel’s government and the military during the war, told the Washington Free Beacon: “”Hamas still doesn’t understand what’s waiting for them. They think we will do something similar to what we did before. They don’t get that it’s game over. They’re going to die — all of them — or surrender.”

Unless there is a breakthrough in ongoing U.S.-led hostage-ceasefire talks with Hamas, Israel is set to launch “the big attack” on Gaza in a week or two, Hezi Nehama, a former Israeli colonel and co-author of the influential General’s Plan for a staged siege of Gaza, told the Free Beacon.

Mass conscription of reservists would start in the coming days, Nehama said, adding that Israeli leaders were considering deploying as many as six ground divisions to Gaza, far more than at any previous point in the war.

“They spoke about between five and six divisions,” he told the Free Beacon. “It depends on how Hizbullah [and Iran-backed Lebanese terrorist group] reacts, etc., etc.”

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Report: Israel’s military set to capture Gaza, section by section, WorldTribune.com