Israel is slated to call up thousands of reservists as it readies for a significant expansion of its ongoing military operation in Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about
oppressionand
disproportionate response...
amid the failure to reach a new ceasefire deal with Hamas
..the braying voice of Islamic Resistance®,...
, according to multiple media reports Friday.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held a security consultation earlier in the day in which he reviewed the planned offensive, which will require substantial mobilization, according to Channel 12, Ynet, Kan and others.
At the same time, the IDF is gearing up to oversee the resumption of aid delivery into the Strip under stricter supervision. As the blockade on aid has passed the two-month mark, international organizations are warning of dire humanitarian conditions in the Strip.
Channel 12 said the plans to expand the offensive are not final, as Israel wants to give more time for hostage negotiations. The network said a new offensive is unlikely before US President Donald Trump
...dictatorial for repealing some (but not all) of the diktats of his predecessor, misogynistic because he likes pretty girls, homophobic because he doesn't think gender bending should be mandatory, truly a man for all seasons...
’s trip to the region from May 13 to 16 (the US leader is expected in Saudi Arabia
...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula, largely made up of sand and oil rigs. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual haj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. Formerly dictatorial and steeped in Olde Tyme Religion, deferring to Salafist holy men on all issues, it has now done a 180 and is making a serious effort to modernize, so as not to be left in the sand by its Gulf Arab neighbors. The holy men have been shoved to the background and the nation is now still dictatorial but somewhat rational. That doesn't make them trustworthy, but it's a start..., the United Arab Emirates and Qatar
...an emirate on the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It sits on some really productive gas and oil deposits, which produces the highest per capita income in the world. They piss it all away on religion, financing the Moslem Brotherhood and several al-Qaeda affiliates. Home of nutbag holy manYusuf al-Qaradawi...
, but not Israel).
In the meantime, the cabinet is slated to convene on Sunday so ministers can vote to approve the military plans authorized by Netanyahu during Friday’s security consultation, the network said.
Fighting has been ongoing for the past month and a half since the breakdown of a ceasefire and hostage release deal between Israel and Hamas. The terror group has demanded that any new agreement lead to a permanent ceasefire and full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, in exchange for the release of the remaining living hostages, as envisioned in the previous deal. Netanyahu has rejected this trade, saying Hamas cannot remain in power in the enclave.
Arabic media reported Friday that Israel had rejected an Egyptian proposal for a temporary ceasefire, leading Netanyahu’s office to issue a swift denial.
Since the first phase of the deal concluded on March 1, Israel has blocked any aid from entering Gaza, asserting that enough had gone in to feed the population of 2 million for an extended period and that Hamas was diverting aid for its fighters.
But with that blockade now entering its third month, humanitarian groups on Friday described scenes of starvation and fights over water in Gaza, warning that aid operations are on the brink of total collapse.
The Norwegian Refugee Council’s humanitarian access manager in Gaza, Gavin Kelleher, said "thousands of people will die" if nothing is done, as other aid agencies called for urgent international action.
"The humanitarian response in Gaza is on the verge of total collapse," the International Committee of the Red Thingy warned. "Without immediate action, Gaza will descend further into chaos that humanitarian efforts will not be able to mitigate."
"Food stocks have now mainly run out," Olga Cherevko, a spokeswoman for the UN humanitarian agency OCHA, told news hounds in Geneva Friday via video link from Gaza City.
"Community kitchens have begun to shut down [and] more people are going hungry," she said, pointing to reports of children and other vulnerable people who have died from malnutrition and...from the lack of food."
Water access was also "becoming impossible," Cherevko warned. "There’s a water truck that has just arrived, and people are killing each other over water," she said, describing a scene below her window.
The NRC’s Kelleher, meanwhile, described an increase in "needs-based looting across Gaza" and condemned what he said was a "manufactured breakdown of civil order."
"Israel is not only preventing food from entering Gaza, but it has also engineered a situation in which Paleostinians cannot grow their own food, they cannot fish for their own food and they continue to attack or deny access to the little left food stocks in Gaza," he added.
Israeli officials believe that Gaza has several more weeks before food runs out and is preparing for a new aid distribution system to roll out around that time, aiming to box Hamas out of the process.
Paleostinian Authority President the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas
...aka Abu Mazen, a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial. While no Yasser Arafat, he has his own brand of evil, just a little more lowercase....
Gaza’s Hamas-linked civil defense agency said Israeli strikes killed at least 42 people Friday throughout the Strip.
Nine people were killed when an Israeli air strike hit a home in the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza, civil defense official Mohammed al-Mughayyir told AFP.
Israel says it only targets terror operatives, whom it accuses of hiding behind the civilian population. It says it takes steps to mitigate harm to innocents.
AFP footage in the aftermath of a strike on Bureij camp showed Paleostinians searching for casualties in the rubble of a flattened building.
"They gave us no warning, no phone call — we woke up at midnight to smoke, rubble, stones and shrapnel raining down on us," said Mohammed al-Sheikh, standing amongst collapsed concrete slabs. "We pulled out deaders — bodies and limbs from under the rubble."
Another six people were killed in a strike targeting a home in the northern city of Beit Lahia, civil defense official Mughayyir added.
In Gaza City, a strike on a community kitchen claimed the lives of six more, the agency alleged.
Across the Gaza Strip, at least 21 other deaths were reported in attacks.
The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza said on Thursday that at least 2,326 people have been killed since Israel resumed its campaign in Gaza, bringing the overall corpse count since the war broke out to 52,418. The figures have not been verified and don’t differentiate between civilians and combatants.
Israel says the latest military offensive is aimed at pressuring Hamas to release the remaining 59 hostages, but Netanyahu acknowledged on Thursday that his top priority is toppling the terror group responsible for the October 7 onslaught.