Gaza City Braces for a New Offensive — and a New Test for the West
On a sweltering August night in Gaza City’s Zeitoun neighborhood, a blast ripped through the darkness and left seven Israeli soldiers wounded, the Israel Defense Forces said. The army rejected reports from Arab media that Hamas had tried to abduct soldiers in the chaos, but the exchange underscored what everyone here already knows: the next phase of this war is moving fast, and it is moving toward the heart of Gaza.
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Israel declared Gaza City a “dangerous combat zone,” cancelling the daily pauses that had allowed a trickle of food and medicine to pass through. The defense ministry has approved plans to occupy the city despite mounting domestic dissent and international warnings. The war, launched after the Oct. 7, 2023 attacks that killed about 1,200 people in Israel and saw 251 hostages taken, has dragged on for nearly two years. Gaza’s health authorities say more than 63,000 people have been killed.
A city under siege, again
Gaza City has been pounded before; the frontlines have folded over it again and again. But this time, it’s happening under the shadow of declared famine and deliberate disruption of aid. Gaza’s health ministry said 10 people, including three children, died from hunger or malnutrition in the past 24 hours alone. Since the war began, the ministry says 332 people have starved to death — most of them in the last two months.
Even as humanitarian agencies warn the food pipeline has all but collapsed, an Israeli official told the Associated Press that airdrops over Gaza City will be halted and trucks reduced as the offensive begins. It is hard to square that plan with the basic laws of war that require humane treatment of civilians, nor with the reality that nearly half the Strip’s roughly two million people either live in Gaza City or rely on it as their economic and social hub.
The head of the International Committee of the Red Cross, Mirjana Spoljaric, put it bluntly: “It is impossible that a mass evacuation of Gaza City could ever be done in a way that is safe and dignified under the current conditions.” There is, simply, nowhere left in Gaza with the space, food, or shelter to absorb another wave of displacement. Yet the Israeli military has urged residents to move south ahead of ground operations — a familiar message after months of ordered “evacuation zones” that often turned into battlefields within days.
On the ground: a fragile pause shatters
Friday’s overnight fighting in Zeitoun and nearby al-Nasr, alongside reported airstrikes on tent encampments, illustrated what an end to pauses means for those who have no shelters and no exits. Gaza health authorities reported at least 62 Palestinians killed across the Strip in the previous 24 hours. The UN said more than 23,000 people had already fled Gaza City this week in anticipation of what comes next.
Israel’s stated goal is to crush Hamas’s military capacity in the city. Hamas, for its part, is signaling it sees opportunity in urban warfare. Abu Obeida, spokesperson for the group’s military wing, warned that an occupation push would increase the chances of capturing Israeli soldiers and further endanger the remaining hostages. That threat — paired with the IDF’s denial of any abduction attempts on Friday — shows how each side is trying to shape the narrative, even as the battlefield does its own talking.
Europe’s split screen, Washington’s hard line
The new Gaza City campaign is landing on a divided continent. Six European foreign ministers backed calls for action against Israel over the deepening humanitarian crisis. Several EU member states, notably Ireland and Spain, want the bloc to suspend its free-trade pact with Israel. Others, including Germany and Hungary, oppose such a step. The EU’s foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, did not mince words about the stalemate: “I’m not very optimistic… We are divided about this issue.”
In Washington, the line hardened further. The U.S. moved to bar Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and about 80 Palestinian officials from traveling to New York for next month’s UN General Assembly. The decision — defended by U.S. officials on security grounds — runs against the grain of the 1947 UN Headquarters Agreement that obliges the host nation to allow access for foreign delegations. There have been rare precedents, including restricted visas or denials for Iranian and Russian officials. Still, blocking the Palestinian delegation ahead of a conference where Britain, France, Canada, and Australia are expected to recognize a Palestinian state is a high-stakes signal to allies and adversaries alike.
Outrage was swift in Ramallah. Hussein al-Sheikh, the Palestinian Authority’s vice-president, called the move a breach of international law. In Europe, several ministers urged the U.S. to reconsider. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez called it “unjust” in a phone call to Abbas. The deeper question is whether the transatlantic alliance — so united in support for Ukraine — can find consensus on how to respond to Gaza’s downward spiral.
The grim arithmetic of urban war
Gaza City is not Aleppo, not Mosul, not Mariupol. But each name echoes the same calculation: urban warfare magnifies civilian suffering, destroys health systems, and writes the hardest chapters for humanitarian law. Siege tactics — whether by physical encirclement, administrative closure, or the throttling of aid — always promise swift military gains and always carry a heavy civilian bill.
Israel argues its operations are necessary to defeat Hamas and secure the release of hostages. Yet nearly two years in, the strategic horizon is cloudy. The political endgame for Gaza remains undefined, and the humanitarian endgame appears to be a population starved into flight. Can that produce lasting security for Israelis, or a viable political future for Palestinians? Or does it lock both into cycles of retraumatization that will take generations to unwind?
International law is often invoked but rarely enforced when the guns are loud and the clocks are ticking. The Red Cross has warned evacuation orders cannot substitute for actual protection. The UN has said truck counts are far below what’s needed. The Israeli military says it is taking measures to minimize harm to noncombatants. All of these statements can be true at once — and still leave civilians without safety.
What to watch in the days ahead
- Gaza City operations: Whether ground incursions stop at specific blocks or broaden into a full occupation will set the humanitarian tempo.
- Hostages and prisoners: Signals from both sides about swaps, pauses, or new captures will shape domestic politics in Israel and the Palestinian territories.
- Aid corridors: Any halt to airdrops and truck convoys will be felt within days; watch for alternative channels via Egypt or maritime routes, and whether they can scale.
- European diplomacy: Can the EU bridge its divisions to impose costs on Israel, or will national capitals act alone?
- UN showdown: How the U.S. handles Palestinian access to the General Assembly could trigger a legal and diplomatic battle with ripple effects beyond the Middle East.
In Zeitoun, the night returned after the explosions, but not the quiet. Parents bandaged children with kitchen cloth. Families debated whether to move south again. An old man quoted lines from Mahmoud Darwish about “the place that is the time” — the idea that home is not just a point on a map but a memory that rebels against erasure. Cities like Gaza, Aleppo, Mosul remind us of something else too: in urban war, generational trauma is the most enduring munition. The day after is always longer than the battle.
As Gaza City braces for what comes next, the world faces its own question: if starvation and displacement on this scale can’t force a policy rethink in allied capitals, what can?
By Ali Musa
Axadle Times international–Monitoring.
