The Israel Defense Forces said it was “conducting extensive attacks and mobilizing troops” in preparation for an expanded ground operation against Hamas and to recover remaining hostages. Dozens of tanks and self-propelled guns have taken up new positions along the northern border fence.
Deadliest phase since March
Gaza’s health ministry said 146 people were killed in the past 24 hours, adding to what it called one of the war’s deadliest phases since a brief January ceasefire collapsed in March.
Strikes hit Beit Lahiya, Jabalia refugee camp and Khan Younis, where local rescuers said bodies remained under rubble.
The bombardment follows U.S. President Donald Trump’s departure from the region on Friday with no progress toward a new truce. Israel had signaled it would delay any major ground thrust until after Trump’s tour.
UN leaders sound alarm
Speaking at an Arab League summit in Baghdad, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres urged an “immediate, permanent ceasefire” and said he was “alarmed by reported plans to expand ground operations.”
U.N. human-rights chief Volker Türk warned that Israel’s 10-week blockade of humanitarian aid, coupled with intensified bombing, was “tantamount to ethnic cleansing” aimed at forcing demographic change in Gaza.
“We must stop the clock on this madness,” Türk said in a statement, adding that attacks on hospitals and civilian shelters violated the Geneva Conventions.
Israel’s new ground offensive
Netanyahu’s security cabinet has approved plans that could include re-occupying the whole of Gaza unless Hamas accepts the U.S.-backed proposal by the end of Trump’s now-concluded regional tour. Arab mediators in Doha have asked for more time, but negotiators reported no breakthrough.
Jerusalem and Washington have floated a plan to channel supplies through private contractors, an idea rejected by the United Nations.
Israel imposed a near-total aid blockade in mid-March, which Defense Minister Israel Katz last month called a “main pressure lever” against Hamas.
Humanitarian agencies say the 10-week chokehold has pushed Gaza’s 2.1 million residents toward famine; a U.N.-backed assessment this week said the whole population faces “critical risk.”
Israel denies shortages, blaming “Hamas looting and selling aid.”
Trump: ‘A lot of people are starving’
Speaking to reporters at the end of a Middle East tour, U.S. President Donald Trump acknowledged growing concern over Gaza’s humanitarian crisis.
“A lot of people are starving in Gaza, so we have to look at both sides,” he said, adding that the US needed to “help out the Palestinians,” but offered no details.
Washington remains Israel’s main arms supplier but has increasingly pressed for a halt in fighting and unimpeded aid deliveries. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Thursday the United States was “troubled” by the situation and continued to back Qatari-mediated ceasefire talks.
Israel’s campaign, launched after Hamas killed 1,218 people and abducted 251 on Oct 7 2023, has left at least 53,000 Palestinians dead, according to Gaza’s health ministry, and displaced nearly the entire population.
Fifty‑seven hostages remain in Gaza, 34 of them presumed dead, Israel says.
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Source: Reuters, The Guardian, BBC