A man carries the body of a Palestinian boy, who was killed while fleeing his home, in the Saftawy neighborhood of Jabalia, Aug. 26, 2025. (Credit: Bashar Taleb/AFP)
The Israeli army intensified its operations around Gaza City on Wednesday, ahead of a White House meeting chaired by Donald Trump focused on postwar plans for the devastated Palestinian territory.
Civil defense in the Gaza Strip reported 24 dead in Israeli bombings and gunfire across the besieged and famine-threatened Palestinian territory, according to the U.N.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is under mounting pressure, both in Israel and abroad, to end his army's war in Gaza, which was launched in response to an unprecedented attack by the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
His security cabinet, earlier in August, approved a plan to seize Gaza City, located in the north of the Palestinian territory, where about two million inhabitants have been repeatedly displaced by the war.
On Wednesday, the Israeli army, which controls about 75 percent of the territory, said its troops "were operating on the outskirts of Gaza City to locate and dismantle terrorist infrastructure sites."
It deemed "inevitable" the evacuation of the city's population, calling it the last major Hamas stronghold in the territory, and saying thousands of residents have already fled.
"Planes bombed and drones fired all night," Tala al-Khatib, a resident of the Zeitoun neighborhood in Gaza City, told AFP by phone. "Several houses were destroyed. We are still at home, but some neighbors have fled. But wherever you flee, death follows you!"
'Enough is enough!'
The U.N. estimates the current population of the Gaza Governorate, which includes Gaza City and its surroundings, at nearly one million people.
Defense Minister Israel Katz has threatened to destroy Gaza City if Hamas does not agree to disarm and release all hostages kidnapped during the Oct. 7 attack, under Israeli conditions.
On Tuesday, tens of thousands of Israelis demonstrated to demand a deal to free the hostages and stop the war.
"Enough is enough!" shouted Silvia Cunio, whose two sons, Ariel and David, abducted during the Oct. 7 attack, are still being held in Gaza.
On Aug. 10, Netanyahu listed Israel's objectives: "disarm Hamas," "all hostages are released," "Gaza is demilitarized," "Israel exercises overarching security control [over the territory], and a non-Israeli, peaceful civil administration."
While Israel continues its offensive, Steve Witkoff, Donald Trump's envoy, announced "a major meeting at the White House" on Wednesday to "develop a very comprehensive plan for the day after" in Gaza, without giving details.
Early in the year, Donald Trump suggested that the United States take control of Gaza, evacuate its inhabitants, and build real estate complexes there.
Netanyahu welcomed this proposal, which was rejected by several European and Arab countries.
'Act'
After banning the entry of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip in March, Israel allowed aid to resume in May, which humanitarian agencies deemed largely insufficient.
On Aug. 22, the U.N. officially declared famine in Gaza and blamed Israel, based on a report by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), a U.N.-mandated body.
Israel, denouncing a "shameless lie" and claiming that "there is no famine in Gaza," demanded Wednesday "that the IPC immediately withdraw its fabricated report."
"We cannot stand idly by and just watch innocent civilians, humanitarian workers, and journalists being killed and starving to death" in Gaza, said European Humanitarian Aid Commissioner Hadja Lahbib. "The time has come for the EU to act."
Almost daily, Palestinians, many of them children, armed with pots and pans, rush to a soup kitchen prepared by a local charity in several parts of Gaza, according to AFP footage.
The Oct. 7 attack killed 1,219 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official data. Of the 251 people abducted that day, 49 remain held in Gaza, at least 27 of whom have died, according to the army.
The Israeli retaliatory offensive has killed at least 62,895 people in Gaza, mostly civilians, according to figures from Gaza's Health Ministry.
Israel continues attacks on southern Lebanon, demolishes buildings in Bint Jbeil