Israel reveals plans for ‘three-phase war’ in Gaza, starting with airstrikes and ground manoeuvres, then moving in to eradicate pockets of resistance and then ceasing Israel’s ‘responsibility for life in the Gaza Strip’

Israel has revealed it is expecting a ‘three-phase’ war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip, the first time the country has set out a long-term plan to deal with its bloodiest conflict in decades. 

Defence Minister Yoav Gallant told Israeli lawmakers that the IDF expects to start its three-phase war with airstrikes and ground manoeuvres. 

The Israeli military then plans on moving onto defeating pockets of resistance from Hamas fighters. 

Gallant said that once this has been completed, Israel’s ‘responsibility for life in the Gaza Strip’ will cease, following the warning it issued to Gazans to leave the country ‘immediately.’

On Friday night the UN and a Palestinian charity said Israel had demanded they evacuate a hospital and five schools being used to shelter people from their air strikes, just days after a blast at the Al-Ahli hospital killed hundreds of people.

Currently, Israel controls around 90% of Gaza’s land and sea borders, and provides the Strip with much of its infrastructure, including electricity and water. Egypt controls Gaza’s southern border, and supports Israel’s blockade, seeing Hamas as a threat to its own safety and stability. 

Israel has cut supplies to Gaza since war broke out between itself and Hamas, and has not yet allowed humanitarian aid to be passed into the region.

As a result, food, clean water, medicine, electricity and fuel are in short supply in the small strip of land, leaving the remaining citizens in a dire situation. 

Gaza’s two main sources of electricity, Israeli power lines and the Gaza power plant, have stopped functioning. Israel cut off Gaza’s electricity immediately after the Hamas attack on October 7, while the power plant stopped working after its fuel ran out. 

Gaza’s citizens have been forced to rely on small generators, fuel for which is rapidly diminishing due to the lack of outside supplies. 

Medics and aid groups have warned that hospitals, treating the thousands of people critically injured by Israeli airstrikes, are on the brink of running out of power. On Monday, the UN warned that hospitals in the region could run out of fuel in as little as 24 hours. 

The lack of electricity has also hampered search and rescue efforts. Palestine’s Civil Defence agency said that its workers are unable to find the huge number of people trapped under the rubble of their homes, destroyed by Israeli airstrikes, without consistent power. 

The Palestine Red Crescent Society said this evening it had received a threat from the Israeli military to bomb Al-Quds Hospital and has demanded the hospital’s immediate evacuation. The Gaza City hospital has more than 400 patients and thousands who of displaced civilians who sought refuge on its grounds, it said.

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said that Israel had also told it to evacuate five schools ‘as fast as possible’. All of the schools are in Gaza City, close to the hospital.

‘We did what we could to protest and reject this decision, but this means that from now these facilities are no longer safe,’ said an UNRWA statement, calling on thousands of people to flee the hospital and the surrounding area.

Egypt has agreed to reopen its northern border with Gaza to allow desperately needed humanitarian aid to enter the war-torn enclave — but there are growing fears Hamas will steal it for themselves or use it as cover to bring in more weapons.

More than 200 trucks and some 3,000 tonnes of aid are now positioned at the Rafah crossing, Gaza’s only connection to Egypt, to deliver food, water and medicine to the millions of civilians trapped there amid withering Israeli airstrikes.

But under the deal agreed by Egypt after intense talks with President Joe Biden yesterday, only 20 trucks with humanitarian aid will be allowed into the enclave from Friday at the earliest amid fears that Hamas will confiscate the supplies.

Even before the latest blockade, Israel enforced a strict blockade on the Gaza Strip, imposing severe restrictions on imports and exports as well as controlling who gets to go in and out of the 141 square mile region.

Before war broke out, the World Food programme estimated that over 60% of Gaza’s residents faced food insecurity, a problem that has only grown since October 7 when Israel cut off supplies. 

Palestine’s food imports grew sharply over the past decade, according to World Bank figures, while the amount of food produced fell. 

Gaza’s fishing industry, which used to make up a significant part of the economy, has been restricted to just 6 miles of the Mediterranean Sea, with Israel’s navy blocking it to prevent weapons being smuggled into the region. 

Palestinians in Gaza are now being forced to severely ration food. One man told the Associated Press that the kilogram of bread he bought from one of the few bakeries still open would need to be shared with 20-30 members of his family. 

90% of Gaza’s fresh water supply was undrinkable before Israel cut the region off, according to Palestine’s water authority. 

The stark warning from Israel comes as columns of Israeli tanks massed on the Israel-Gaza border and thousands of soldiers readied themselves for battle today as an invasion of the war-torn enclave appears imminent. 

Tens of thousands of Israeli soldiers and scores of tanks and armoured vehicles are now positioned on the border – ready for a ground assault on the Gaza Strip where 203 hostages are being held captive by Hamas terrorists. 

The massing of artillery and men at the border comes after heavy machine gunfire was heard along the border in the early hours of this morning.

And today, Israel continued to pound Gaza with a relentless stream of airstrikes with the IDF saying their fighter jets hit over 100 ‘operational targets’ of Hamas terrorists overnight. The strikes destroyed tunnel shafts, munitions warehouses and dozens of operational headquarters, the IDF said. 

Israel also began evacuating a northern Israeli city near the Lebanese border in yet another sign of an impending ground invasion that could trigger turmoil across the Middle East.

The two million Palestinians trapped in the small enclave, where thousands have been killed and entire towns obliterated in the Israeli airstrikes, are now bracing themselves for the invasion that is expected to result in further major casualties. 

It comes after Yoav Gallant, the Israeli defence minister, on Thursday visited troops positioned along the Gaza border, and told them that they would soon see the Palestinian enclave ‘from inside’.

An infantry commander in the IDF told DailyMail.com on Thursday that they were ready to invade, adding there was ‘a very high level of optimism’ among his troops.

Israel’s leaders are determined to rid Gaza of its Hamas rulers, even if that means going house-to-house in an operation that could last ‘years’ and result in further major casualties among Palestinians. 

Top war experts have warned that a conflict with Hamas in the Gaza Strip may become bloody and brutal. 

David Petraeus, the former director of the CIA and the US’ top general in both Iraq and Afghanistan, warned that the IDF’s current plan of a bombing campaign followed by a major land invasion of the 140 square mile patch of land ‘could be Mogadishu on steroids very quickly.‘

The warning referenced the two-day battle between US forces and Somalia National Alliance (SNA) and armed citizens in Somalia’s capital city in 1993.

Three US Black Hawk choppers were downed by resistance forces, leading to bloody urban fighting over several hours that ended up being the deadliest single battle fought by US soldiers since the Vietnam War.

Fears of a wider conflagration in the Middle East are growing as well, with Israel announcing plans to evacuate the northern city of Kiryat Shmona after days of clashes with Hezbollah fighters along the border with Lebanon. Days earlier, Israel evacuated 28 communities near the border. 

Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group, which has a massive arsenal of long-range rockets, has traded fire with Israel along the border on a near-daily basis and hinted it might join the war if Israel seeks to annihilate Hamas. Israel’s archfoe Iran supports both armed groups.

Elsewhere, Israel continued to pound Gaza with withering airstrikes today including parts of the south that Israel had declared ‘safe zones’, as the millions of Palestinians trapped in the enclave desperately awaited a first delivery of international emergency aid. 

In northern Gaza, Hamas terrorists accused Israel of committing war crimes after Israeli airstrikes hit an Orthodox Christian church where families had been sheltering. Gaza’s Hamas-run government media office said 18 Christian Palestinians had been killed, adding it was ‘a war crime that cannot be ignored’. 

Israel has said it is attacking Hamas terrorists wherever they may be in Gaza, describing them as ‘dead men walking’, and accused the group’s leaders and fighters of taking shelter among the civilian population. 

But Israel’s withering airstrikes have continued to obliterate entire neighbourhoods across the densely populated territory, leaving death and destruction in its wake.

Exhausted Palestinians desperately searched through the rubble of their homes for loved ones across Gaza this morning, their screams piercing the air as they found the lifeless bodies of their children, wives and parents.

In the nearly two weeks since Israel began its withering aerial bombardment in response to a devastating attack by Hamas terrorists that saw 1,300 people slaughtered, thousands of homes have been destroyed across the 25-mile enclave and 3,785 Palestinians killed, including 1,524 children. 

For the more than two million Palestinians trapped there, nowhere – and no one – seems to be safe from the relentless Israeli strikes. And doctors say they are fighting a losing battle against a lack of medicines, water and fuel to keep hospitals running.

Grief-stricken parents, their legs buckling beneath them as they see the bodies of their dead children had become a familiar sight since the war started on October 7. 

Eight children aged between two and five were among 10 people from the same family killed in an air strike on a house in the city of Khan Yunis, in southern Gaza, early on Wednesday, relatives said. 

‘The children were asleep when they destroyed the house,’ their 67-year-old grandfather, Abu Mohammad Wafi al-Bakri, said. 

Diyala, Ayman, Hamada, Zaher, Uday, Jamal, Nabil and Acil all came from one extended family and all slept on the ground floor. It took an hour after the raid to find their bodies, rescuers said.

‘None of my children were linked to Palestinian organisations and no men were in the house at the time,’ said Jihad al-Bakri, father of three of the children.

He had left his home an hour before the missile hit to try to find water.

Citing a deepening humanitarian crisis, the international community has urged Israel to minimise civilian casualties and allow desperately-needed aid to enter Gaza.

But the deal to get aid into Gaza through Rafah, the territory’s only crossing not controlled by Israel, remained fragile. Israel said the supplies could only go to civilians and that it would ‘thwart’ any diversions by Hamas. More than 200 trucks and some 3,000 tons of aid were positioned at or near Rafah. 

Work began on Friday to repair the road at the crossing that had been damaged in airstrikes, with trucks unloading gravel and bulldozers and other road repair equipment filling in large craters. 

But inside Israel, the drumbeat of war has only grown louder.

Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, rallied troops near Gaza on Thursday, suggesting the invasion was imminent. Decked in body armour, he vowed troops would ‘fight like lions’ and ‘win with full force’.

And Gallant banged the drum of war in a briefing to Israeli troops massed on the border with Gaza, telling them to ‘annihilate’ Hamas and that they will soon see the enclave ‘from the inside’. 

He told them: ‘Whoever sees Gaza from afar will soon see it from the inside. The command will come, I promise you. 

‘There is no forgiveness for this thing. Only total annihilation of Hamas organization – terror infrastructures, everything that has to do with terrorists and whoever sent them. 

‘It will take a week, it will take a month, it will take two months, until we annihilate them. You are not alone in battle. We trust you and count on you. Carry on training while there is time.’ 

Israel have refused to discuss plans for what will happen in Gaza after Hamas is toppled. President Joe Biden, who was in Israel on Wednesday, asked about a post-Hamas Gaza, and was reportedly told that all resources were currently focused on the invasion, rather than the day after. 

But several Israeli politicians have referenced creating an expanded demilitarized zone around the border.

When asked about the military’s movements, IDF spokesman Lt. Colonel Jonathan Conricus told CNN that the military was ready, but would not announce their invasion in advance.

‘The reserves are ready, equipped, mission-oriented, and standing by for the next stage of our operations,’ said Conricus. ‘But at this time, of course, we will not advertise when, where, and how we will advance or do or enhance our military activities.’

Work began on Friday to repair the road at the crossing that had been damaged in airstrikes, with trucks unloading gravel and bulldozers and other road repair equipment filling in large craters. 

But inside Israel, the drumbeat of war has only grown louder.

Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, rallied troops near Gaza on Thursday, suggesting the invasion was imminent. Decked in body armour, he vowed troops would ‘fight like lions’ and ‘win with full force’.

And Gallant banged the drum of war in a briefing to Israeli troops massed on the border with Gaza, telling them to ‘annihilate’ Hamas and that they will soon see the enclave ‘from the inside’. 

He told them: ‘Whoever sees Gaza from afar will soon see it from the inside. The command will come, I promise you. 

‘There is no forgiveness for this thing. Only total annihilation of Hamas organization – terror infrastructures, everything that has to do with terrorists and whoever sent them. 

‘It will take a week, it will take a month, it will take two months, until we annihilate them. You are not alone in battle. We trust you and count on you. Carry on training while there is time.’ 

Israel have refused to discuss plans for what will happen in Gaza after Hamas is toppled. President Joe Biden, who was in Israel on Wednesday, asked about a post-Hamas Gaza, and was reportedly told that all resources were currently focused on the invasion, rather than the day after. 

But several Israeli politicians have referenced creating an expanded demilitarized zone around the border.

When asked about the military’s movements, IDF spokesman Lt. Colonel Jonathan Conricus told CNN that the military was ready, but would not announce their invasion in advance.

‘The reserves are ready, equipped, mission-oriented, and standing by for the next stage of our operations,’ said Conricus. ‘But at this time, of course, we will not advertise when, where, and how we will advance or do or enhance our military activities.’

Nir Barkat, Israel’s economy minister, confirmed that the invasion had been approved, and now it was up to the military to decide when to strike.

‘The Israeli government made a decision, gave a green light to the army to wipe them out and now it’s in the hands of the army,’ he said.

Troops were not expected to enter while foreign leaders were visiting.

Biden left Israel on Wednesday evening: Britain’s prime minister, Rishi Sunak, visited on Thursday morning, and then left for Saudi Arabia.

Biden addressed the American people from the Oval Office of the White House on Thursday night – only his second Oval Office address since becoming president.

He used his speech to explain why the Israeli war, and the Ukraine battle, were so crucial to the United States.

Biden also urged implementation of a deal he brokered with Israel and Egypt to allow a limited amount of aid into Gaza from Friday.

‘The people of Gaza urgently need food, water and medicine,’ Biden said in a televised address from the Oval Office on his return from Tel Aviv.

But near Egypt’s border with Gaza, food, medicines, water purifiers and blankets have been piling up, with doubts growing that the Rafah crossing will open as planned.

‘We hope there will be a crossing tomorrow,’ World Health Organization (WHO) boss Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Thursday.

‘But for sure, based on the experience we had the last few days, we are also at the same time worried whether this will happen.’

Meanwhile in Israel, one veteran IDF commander told DailyMail.com that his troops were ready to ‘wipe Hamas out’.

Eliezer, a major in the IDF who goes by Ezzy, and did not want to give his last name, is stationed in the south of Israel with the Golani Brigade – a group of reservists, often one of the first to be called up for active duty. 

Ezzy signed up in 2004 and has served in the last four major wars in Israel, as an engineer, rabbi and commander.

His unit is designated to lead the forces of the Brigade – neutralizing mine fields, creating new pathways, capturing bridgeheads, and detonating explosives, he told DailyMail.com.

‘Without a question, this is different than any year,’ he said. ‘But morale is very high, very optimistic.’

Ezzy said the terror attacks of October 7 have galvanized his troops.

‘Obviously the first days we experienced the initial shock. Tons of mourning – but there wasn’t a lot of time to mourn,’ he said.

‘We didn’t know when we would go in, we thought we would go in to Gaza a lot earlier.’

Ezzy said there was a strong sense of purpose among the soldiers.

‘We are very close.

‘There’s a lot of brotherhood, and with time the spirit is going up – there’s a very high level of optimism.

‘I can’t remember Israel so united. More than ever I feel the support – we get messages.’

He said they appreciated international support for their war on Hamas.

‘I feel the world is united – it’s not just Jewish people, It’s anyone who understands there’s good and evil,’ he said.

‘They understand Israel is fighting for the good of this world – not just for Israel, but for light in this world.’

And he said his troops were ready to go in to Gaza.

‘The soldiers are trained – they want to go in,’ he said, adding that they were spending their days ‘sharpening our skills on the planning and physical level.’

‘They’re ready, but we take day by day,’ he added. We see every day that we don’t go in as a blessing because we can use it to train and to become better prepared.’

Ezzy said their mission was ‘clear’, describing the aims of the invasion as straightforward.

‘Hamas has to be wiped out,’ he said. ‘There’s no argument – it’s clear. We always knew what their (Hamas) intent was and now we know what their capabilities are.

‘We know we have to completely eradicate the enemy and that’s what we have to do. It’s unknown when exactly we will go in. We are taking it day by day.’

Israel’s agriculture minister, Avi Dichter – who was previously head of Israel’s Shin Bet domestic security agency — said on Thursday during a visit to the border town of Sderot that a buffer zone would be created within Gaza.

At present, Israel’s border security begins several hundred yards inside Israel’s territory.

Dichter said that needed to change, with a ‘no man’s land’ between the Gazan territory and Israel, The Financial Times reported. 

‘It’s not that you started it from inside the Gaza Strip, as a buffer zone,’ he told a media briefing. 

‘You started it on the Israeli side — 50 to 100 metres inside. We understand it was a mistake, it has to be fixed.’

The 20-foot-tall border fence currently has a 100-yard buffer zone, backed by radar, motion sensors, a deep concrete foundation to deter tunneling, and observation towers.

Construction on the ‘smart fence’ began after 2016 and was completed in 2021.

But on October 7, Hamas launched its attacks from Gaza, bursting through the border fence and rampaging through Israel for hours.

Dichter said they would no longer allow Gazans to approach the fence – effectively squeezing Gaza’s territory. 

‘On the Gaza Strip all along, we will have a margin,’ he said.

‘And they will not be able to get in. It will be a fire zone. And no matter who you are, you will never be able to come close to the Israeli border.’ 

Israel previously maintained a buffer zone inside Gaza after it withdrew from the strip in 2005. But over the years the buffer was eroded.

Dichter said the width of any future buffer zone would have to be decided ‘according to the area, the needs of the military, according to the distance of the Israeli military or the Israeli settlements’. 

He added: ‘We have Kibbutz Nahal Oz that is 800 metres from the border. So you need to take more precautions in such an area. 

‘The whole contour of the Gaza Strip, it doesn’t allow us to take risks. We have seen what happened when we took risks. It was a mistake we are not going to repeat.’

Another Israeli official added: ‘Obviously Gaza tomorrow will not look anything like it did before October 7. 

‘Hamas will be dismantled, as will Islamic Jihad, and they won’t be able to attack Israel again. 

‘How it looks territorially .- we don’t have the details, but that is our objective: There won’t be any terrorists on our border like there was before.’

It comes as the Israeli army announced plans to evacuate the northern city of Kiryat Shmona on Friday, after days of clashes with Hezbollah terrorists along the border with Lebanon.

‘A short while ago, the Northern Command informed the mayor of the city of the decision. The plan will be managed by the local authority, the Ministry of Tourism and the Ministry of Defence,’ the military said in a statement.

Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah and allied Palestinian factions have traded cross-border fire with Israel for days after Hamas gunmen launched their savage attack on October 7.

Israel’s military said its forces continued to target Hezbollah targets as tensions grew along the border.

‘The IDF (Israel Defense Forces) carried out a number of attacks against Hezbollah infrastructure, including observation posts,’ the army said early Friday.

‘In addition, IDF fighter jets struck three terrorists who attempted to launch anti-tank missiles toward Israel.’

Israeli authorities have been steadily evacuating communities across the northern frontier, as reservists and columns of tanks and armoured vehicles poured into the area.