Zamir says that IDF approved plans for the next stage of the war before Gaza City’s offensive

During a visit to the Gaza Strip on Sunday morning, the IDF chief General Eyal Zamir said that the military would later approved “the plan for the next war stage” on the day, as Israel is preparing to expand its ongoing offensive against Hamas by conquering Gaza city.

His comments came, after the security cabinet at the beginning of this month for the approval of a military offensive in the Northern Gaza Strip to defeat and record what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described as the “last Hamas stronghold”, is the largest city of the Palestinian enclave.

The plans based on a general outline of Zamir based on Zamir last week were discussed on Saturday evening on Southern Command.

In the remarks published by the IDF, Zamir said: “Today we approved the plan for the next stage of the war.”

“We will maintain the dynamics of Operation Gideon’s dynamics while we concentrate on Gaza city,” he said, referring to a military offensive against Hamas that started in May.

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“We will continue to strike until the Hamas is defeated. We will act with a highly developed, measured and responsible strategy. The IDF will use all its skills ashore, in air and at sea to beat Hamas by force,” said Zamir.

IDF chief of the general of General Gen. Eyal Zamir (left) and the southern command, Major General Gen. Yaniv Asor, can be seen on August 17, 2025 in the Gaza Strip (Israel Defense Forces)

The IDF leader said: “Soon we will soon go to the next stage of Operation Gideon’s Chariot, in which we will further deepen the damage for Hamas in Gaza until his defeat.”

“Operation Gideon’s characters have achieved their goals,” said Zamir, adding that “Hamas no longer has the same skills they had before the operation. We gave him a strong blow.”

Zamir said that the offensive against the terrorist group was not “localized”, but part of a “long-term and planned program with a multi-front vision in order to hit all components of the axis primarily”.

The plans for the expansion of offensive operations in Gaza come after 22 months of war war months, which have created serious humanitarian conditions in the enclave, and triggered the international alarm through the fate of the striped strip, in which around 2.2 million people are located. It has also drawn a sharp counter -reaction in Israel, where the relatives of hostages kidnapped by Hamas held a nationwide strike on Sunday in protest against the plan. They call for an end to war through a negotiated hostage publication contract.

On August 17, 2025, expelled Palestinians set off on the way to the place of a humanitarian aid in the Bureij warehouse in the central gaza strip (photo of Eyad Baba / AFP)

As part of the plan to conquer the city of Gaza, the military is preparing to “move” the inhabitants of the city, which laid some estimates in over one million in refugee areas in southern Gaza.

Before the plan, Israel announced on Saturday that it will extend the range of tents and protective equipment to GAZA, which is no longer permitted for 26 weeks: “As part of the preparations of the IDF, to bring the population from fighting zones to their protection in the southern Gaza Strip.”

On the planned population broadcast, Hamas condemned a “new wave of genocide and postponement” and said that the planned use of tents and other protective equipment from Israel in the southern Gaza is an “obvious deception” that should “cover up a brutal crime that prepares the crew for preparing for it to prepare for it.

On August 17, 2025, expelled Palestinians set off on the way to the place of a humanitarian aid in the Bureij warehouse in the central gaza strip (Eyad Baba / AFP)

Hamas says that IDF strikes kill at least 18

In the meantime, Israeli strikes and shots killed at least 18 Palestinians in Gaza on Sunday, including seven people who were waiting for the collection of food aids, according to the Gaza civil protection authority led by Hamas.

The numbers could not be verified, and Israel deliberately denies those who are waiting for help, even though the troops fire on the warning shots at those who endanger the armed forces.

The spokesman for civil defense, Mahmud Bassal, to which Israel was accused of being an active Hamas operator, said AFP that seven people were killed in an Israeli drone strike who met a courtyard in Gaza in the north of the territory.

Witnesses said the victims were members of a Hamas unit who described a source of the terrorist group as responsible for the distribution of help and “fight thieves”.

Witnesses on Sunday reported overnight overnight and until the morning on the Gaza Strip Israeli air raids over the Gaza Strip.

Bassal said that four people were killed in a strike that hit a protected protégé in the southern area of Khan Younis, and added that Israel continued his intensive bombing of Gaza City’s Zeitoun, in which troops carried out a soil surgery last week.

He said that the civil defense teams had “enormous difficulties that have difficulties in the ruins” due to the continuing violence and the lack of equipment.

This picture from the Bureij warehouse in the central gaza strip shows a military transport aircraft from the Belgian Air Force, which flies over the territory after reducing humanitarian aid on August 17, 2025. (Photo by Eyad Baba / AFP)

161 auxiliary pallets adds; Demark, Indonesia Encounter Efforts

In the meantime, aircraft from Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Germany, Belgium, France, Italy, the Netherlands and – for the first time – triggered 161 pallets of humanitarian aid in the Gaza strip in Denmark and Indonesia on Sunday.

Each palette contains about a ton of food.

Indonesia, the country with the largest Muslim population in the world, has no relationship with Israel.

Israel has re-adapted the policy of permission to drop in AID on July 26th, in the middle of international criticism of the hunger crisis in Gaza. But Airdrops can only deliver a small fraction of what can come from Land in Gaza and represent security risks for civilians who can be hit from above by the packages.

The ongoing war began on October 7, 2023, when thousands of terrorists from Hamas marched into Israel, killed around 1,200 people and took 251 hostages.

Terror groups in Gaza still hold 50 hostages, 20 of which are assumed that they are alive, while 28 were confirmed dead, with the government “serious concern” expressing for the remaining two.

On August 17, 2025, this picture from the Bureij camp for displaced Palestinians in the central gaza strip shows parcels with humanitarian aid over the besieged area. (Eyad Baba / AFP).

According to the Hamas-led Gaza Ministry of Health, more than 60,000 people were killed in the strip or are suspected in the previous fights, although the toll cannot be checked and do not differentiate between civilians and fighters. Israel says that in January there were 20,000 fighters in the fight and another 1,600 terrorists in Israel killed during the rush of October 7th.

Israel insists that it minimizes civilian deaths and says that Hamas Gazas uses civilians as human shields and fights from civilian areas such as houses, hospitals, schools and mosques.

Israel’s tribute in the floor offensive against Hamas in Gaza and in military operations along the border with the strip is 459.