An Israeli armoured personnel carrier (APC) manoeuvres on the Israeli side of the border with Gaza, Israel August 19, 2025.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Israel’s Defence Minister has approved a plan for the conquest of Gaza City and authorised the call-up of around 60,000 reservists to carry it out, his Ministry confirmed on Wednesday (August 20, 2025).

Defence Minister Israel Katz’s move, confirmed to AFP by a spokesperson, piled pressure on Hamas as mediators pushing for a ceasefire in the nearly two-year war in Gaza awaited an official Israeli response on their latest proposal.

While mediator Qatar had expressed guarded optimism over the latest proposal, a senior Israeli official said the government stood firm on its call for the release of all hostages in any agreement.

The framework that Hamas had approved proposes an initial 60-day truce, a staggered hostage release, the freeing of some Palestinian prisoners and provisions allowing for the entry of aid into Gaza.

Israel and Hamas have held on-and-off indirect negotiations throughout the war, resulting in two short truces during which Israeli hostages were released in exchange for Palestinian prisoners.

The latest truce proposal came after Israel’s security cabinet approved plans to conquer Gaza City, despite fears it will worsen the already catastrophic humanitarian crisis.

Qatar and Egypt, backed by the United States, have mediated the frequent rounds of shuttle diplomacy.

Qatar said the latest proposal was “almost identical” to an earlier version agreed by Israel, while Egypt said Monday (August 18, 2025) that “the ball is now in its (Israel’s) court”.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has yet to publicly comment on the plan but said last week that his country would accept “an agreement in which all the hostages are released at once and according to our conditions for ending the war”.

Senior Hamas official Mahmoud Mardawi said on social media that his group had “opened the door wide to the possibility of reaching an agreement, but the question remains whether Netanyahu will once again close it, as he has done in the past”.

‘White gold’

The latest truce proposal came as Mr. Netanyahu faces increasing pressure at home and abroad.

In Gaza, the civil defence agency reported Israeli strikes and fire killed 48 people across the territory on Tuesday (August 19, 2025).

Agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP the situation was “very dangerous and unbearable” in the Zeitoun and Sabra neighbourhoods of Gaza City, where he said “shelling continues intermittently”.

The Israeli military declined to comment on specific troop movements, saying only that it was “operating to dismantle Hamas military capabilities” and took “feasible precautions to mitigate civilian harm”.

The military later said a strike in Khan Yunis overnight targeted a Hamas militant.

Media restrictions in Gaza and difficulties accessing swathes of the Palestinian territory mean AFP is unable to independently verify the tolls and details provided by the civil defence agency or the Israeli military.

In the Zikim area of northern Gaza on Tuesday (August 19, 2025), an AFP journalist saw Palestinians hauling sacks of food aid along dusty roads lined with rubble and damaged buildings.

Gazan Shawg Al-Badri said it took “three to four hours” to carry flour, what she called “white gold”, back to her family’s tent. “This bag is worth the whole world,” she said.

Hamas’s October 2023 attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.

Israel’s offensive has killed at least 62,064 Palestinians, most of them civilians, according to figures from the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza, which the United Nations considers reliable.

READ MORE

A woman and her children walk past a wall with photographs of hostages who were kidnapped during the Oct. 7 Hamas cross-border attack in Israel in Jerusalem, on February 26, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AP

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on March 26 vowed to press ahead with Israel’s offensive and blasted a U.N. Security Council resolution calling for a pause in the fighting, saying it had emboldened Hamas to reject a separate proposal for a cease-fire and hostage release.

As the war in Gaza grinds through a sixth month, each side has publicly insisted that its own idea of victory is in reach and rejected international efforts to stem the bloodshed.

Mr. Netanyahu has said Israel can achieve its aims of dismantling Hamas and returning scores of hostages if it expands its ground offensive to the southern city of Rafah, where over half of Gaza’s population has sought refuge, many in crowded tent camps.

Hamas has said it will hold onto the hostages until Israel agrees to a more permanent cease-fire, withdraws its forces from Gaza and releases hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, including top militants. It said late on March 25 that it has rejected a recent proposal that fell short of those demands — which, if fulfilled, would allow it to claim an extremely costly victory.

Mr. Netanyahu said in a statement that the announcement “proved clearly that Hamas is not interested in continuing negotiations toward a deal and served as unfortunate testimony to the damage of the Security Council decision.”

“Israel will not surrender to Hamas’ delusional demands and will continue to act to achieve all the goals of the war: releasing all the hostages, destroying Hamas’ military and governing capabilities and ensuring that Gaza will never again be a threat to Israel.”

The war has killed over 32,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its tally but says women and children make up about two-thirds of those killed. The fighting has left much of the Gaza Strip in ruins, displaced most its residents and driven a third of its population of 2.3 million to the brink of famine.

An Israeli strike late on March 25 on a residential building in Rafah where three displaced families were sheltering killed at least 16 people, including nine children and four women, according to hospital records and relatives of the deceased. An Associated Press reporter saw the bodies arrive at a hospital.

On March 25, the Security Council finally managed to pass a resolution calling for a cease-fire as the United States abstained instead of vetoing the measure, angering Israel in a major escalation of tensions between the two close allies. The resolution calls for the release of all hostages held in Gaza but did not condition the cease-fire on it.

Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz told Army Radio on March 26 that the resolution had emboldened Hamas by signalling that international pressure would end the war without it having to make any concessions.

“The message delivered to Hamas yesterday … is that you don’t have to hurry,” Mr. Katz said.

The war began on October 7, when Hamas-led militants stormed across the border and attacked communities in southern Israel, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting around 250 others. It is still believed to be holding about 100 hostages and the remains of 30 others, after most of the rest were freed in November in exchange for the release of Palestinian prisoners.

The United States, Qatar and Egypt have spent several weeks trying to negotiate another cease-fire and hostage release, but those efforts appeared to have stalled. Hamas has informed the mediators it will stick to an earlier position, it said in its statement late on March 25.

Hamas said Israel has not responded to its core demands of a “comprehensive cease-fire, an (Israeli) withdrawal from the Strip, the return of displaced people and a real prisoner exchange.”

Hamas has previously proposed a phased process in which it would release all the remaining hostages in exchange for a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, the opening of its borders for aid and reconstruction, and the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, including top militants serving life sentences.

Mr. Netanyahu has vowed to resume Israel’s offensive after any hostage release and keep fighting until Hamas is destroyed, saying it’s the only way to prevent a repeat of the October 7 attack. But he has provided few details about what would follow any such victory and has largely rejected a post-war vision outlined by the U.S.

That approach has brought him into increasingly open conflict with President Joe Biden’s administration, which has expressed mounting concern over civilian casualties while supplying Israel with crucial military aid and backing Israel’s aim of destroying Hamas. The U.S. had vetoed previous U.N. resolutions calling for a cease-fire.

The White House has urged Israel not to undertake a major ground operation in Rafah, warning that it could cause a humanitarian catastrophe. The administration was set to brief visiting Israeli officials on an alternative approach, but Netanyahu called off their visit in response to the U.S. abstention at the U.N.

Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant is in Washington on a separate trip, however, and is to meet with U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on March 26.

On March 25, Mr. Gallant vowed to continue the offensive until Israel’s aims are met.

“We will operate against Hamas everywhere — including in places where we have not yet been,” he said. “We have no moral right to stop the war while there are still hostages held in Gaza.”