{"id":300571,"date":"2025-08-04T12:20:39","date_gmt":"2025-08-04T11:20:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=300571"},"modified":"2025-10-12T10:48:28","modified_gmt":"2025-10-12T09:48:28","slug":"israel-preparing-to-escalate-military-offensive-in-gaza","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2025\/08\/israel-preparing-to-escalate-military-offensive-in-gaza\/","title":{"rendered":"Israel Preparing to Escalate Military Offensive in Gaza"},"content":{"rendered":"

An Israeli official said Netanyahu is pushing for ‘the release of hostages as part of a military resolution.’<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

3 Aug 2025\u00a0<\/em>–\u00a0The Israeli military is drawing up plans to escalate its genocidal war in the Gaza Strip that will soon be presented to Israeli political leadership, Haaretz<\/em> reported today.<\/a><\/p>\n

An Israeli official said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu \u201cis pushing for the release of hostages as part of a military resolution,\u201d and he is set to discuss the matter with his cabinet on Tuesday<\/a>. According to the Haaretz<\/em> report, the idea is to extend ground operations into sensitive areas, including Gaza\u2019s central refugee camps, where Israeli captives are believed to be held.<\/p>\n

Israeli officials are now claiming that Hamas doesn\u2019t want a deal, even though the group has long said it is willing to release all remaining Israeli captives in exchange for a permanent ceasefire. Officials are pointing to Hamas\u2019s denial<\/a> of a claim by US envoy Steve Witkoff, who said the group was willing to disarm. Hamas responded that it would only give up its weapons if an independent Palestinian state were established.<\/p>\n

Witkoff was in Israel on Friday and Saturday and met with family members of Israelis being held in Gaza. He told them that President Trump no longer seeks a temporary ceasefire<\/a> deal but wants a comprehensive one that will free the remaining 20 living Israeli captives. However, Netanyahu hasn\u2019t shown interest in a deal, and there\u2019s no sign that Trump is willing to put pressure on him.<\/p>\n

The family members of Israeli captives in Gaza want a diplomatic solution and are against military escalation. The Hostages and Missing Families Forum has criticized the reported plans for the expansion of military operations, warning that \u201cexpanding the war endangers the lives of the hostages, who are already in immediate danger of death.\u201d<\/p>\n

Netanyahu claimed on Sunday <\/a>that the videos of two emaciated Israeli captives released by Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) show that Hamas \u201cdoesn\u2019t want a deal\u201d and vowed that he would work to \u201celiminate\u201d the Palestinian group. For its part, Hamas insisted<\/a> that the Israeli prisoners eat \u201cwhat our fighters and our people eat\u201d and said that the Red Cross could deliver aid to them<\/a> if Israel permanently opened humanitarian corridors and halted airstrikes during aid deliveries.<\/p>\n

Israel has been under significant international pressure to allow more aid into Gaza as Palestinians are starving to death<\/a> due to its blockade. The Haaretz<\/em> report said that the US and Israel appear to be moving toward expanding Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) distribution points in north Gaza, which would require Israel to occupy more territory.<\/p>\n

Nearly 1,000 Palestinians have been killed by the IDF near GHF distribution sites, according to the UN<\/a>. Anthony Aguilar, a retired US Army Green Beret who worked at GHF sites, has blown the whistle on the operation<\/a> and says that the sites were designed purposely so Palestinians seeking aid would have to walk through combat zones where they can be killed. He said that he witnessed the IDF commit war crimes by firing into crowds of hungry civilians.<\/p>\n

Despite the massacres near GHF sites, the operation has received a resounding endorsement from the Trump administration. On Friday, Witkoff and US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee visited a GHF site, a move that was criticized as a PR stunt. <\/a><\/p>\n

___________________________________________<\/p>\n

\n

Dave DeCamp is the news editor of<\/em> antiwar.com.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Go to Original – news.antiwar.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

3 Aug 2025\u00a0–\u00a0The Israeli military is drawing up plans to escalate its genocidal war in the Gaza Strip that will soon be presented to Israeli political leadership, Haaretz reported today. An Israeli official said Netanyahu is pushing for ‘the release of hostages as part of a military resolution.’<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":102023,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[3287,1559,1854,100,1199,2242,87,865,1029,1966,1644,88,2416,427,2897,880,99,70,965],"class_list":["post-300571","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-anti-zionism","tag-collective-punishment","tag-crimes-against-humanity","tag-direct-violence","tag-ethnic-cleansing","tag-famine","tag-gaza","tag-genocide","tag-hamas","tag-hunger","tag-international-court-of-justice-icj","tag-israel","tag-israeli-occupation","tag-palestine","tag-sociocide","tag-state-terrorism","tag-structural-violence","tag-usa","tag-war-crimes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300571","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=300571"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300571\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":300572,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300571\/revisions\/300572"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/102023"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=300571"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=300571"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=300571"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}