Israel calls up tens of thousands of reservists ahead of Gaza offensive

Israel was issuing orders to call up tens of thousands of reservists ahead of an expanded offensive in Gaza, Israeli media reported Saturday, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attacked truce mediator Qatar.

Several news outlets reported the military had begun sending the orders for reservists to replace conscripts and active-duty soldiers in Israel and the occupied West Bank so they can be redeployed to Gaza.

To display this content from YouTube, you must enable advertisement tracking and audience measurement.

Accept Manage my choices

One of your browser extensions seems to be blocking the video player from loading. To watch this content, you may need to disable it on this site.

Try again

Israel's army on Sunday confirmed it was calling up "tens of thousands" of reservists to expand its war in Gaza, army chief Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir said.

"This week we are issuing tens of thousands of orders to our reservists to intensify and expand our operation in Gaza," Zamir said in a statement, adding the army would destroy all Hamas infrastructure, "both on the surface and underground".

Israel resumed major operations across Gaza on March 18 amid deadlock over how to proceed with a two-month ceasefire that had largely halted the war sparked by Hamas's October 2023 attack.

Read moreIsrael launches new strikes on Syria amid Druze tensions

Qatar, which hosts Hamas's political office, brokered the truce alongside the US and Egypt that came into effect in January. Efforts to secure a new deal however have appeared to stall in recent weeks.

Netanyahu accused the gas-rich Gulf state of "playing both sides with its double talk". Posting on X, he said Qatar had to "decide if it's on the side of civilisation or if it's on the side of Hamas barbarism".

The Israeli prime minister, under pressure from his far-right supporters, without whom he would lose his governing coalition, has been increasingly vocal in his calls to continue the war since the restart of the Gaza offensive.

"Israel will win this just war with just means," he added.

Qatari foreign ministry spokesman Majed al-Ansari rejected the "inflammatory" comments, charging that they "fall far short of the most basic standards of political and moral responsibility" in a statement on X.

Israel has also blocked all aid deliveries to Gaza since March 2, prompting warnings from UN agencies of impending humanitarian disaster.

Hostage video

Hamas on Saturday released footage of an apparently wounded Israeli-Russian hostage held in Gaza as 11 Palestinians, including three infants, were killed in a strike on the territory, its civil defence agency said.

The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said at least 2,396 people had been killed since Israel resumed its campaign in Gaza, bringing the overall death toll from the war to 52,495.

Gaza militants still hold 58 hostages, 34 of whom the army says are dead. Hamas is also holding the remains of an Israeli soldier killed in a previous war in Gaza in 2014.

The militant group's armed wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, released a video on Saturday showing a hostage AFP and Israeli media identified as Russian-Israeli Maxim Herkin.

Watch moreGaza: Community kitchens face collapse as Israeli blockade continues

In the undated four-minute video, Herkin, who turns 37 this month, was shown wearing bandages on his head and left arm.

Speaking in Hebrew in the video, which his family urged media to disseminate, he implied he had been wounded in a recent Israeli bombardment.

AFP was unable to determine the health of Herkin, who gave a similar message to other hostages shown in videos released by Hamas, urging pressure on the Israeli government to free the remaining captives.

'Bright light'

Several thousand Israelis demonstrated outside the defence ministry in Tel Aviv on Saturday, demanding action from the government to secure the hostages' release.

"We're here because we want the hostages home. We're here because we don't believe that the war in Gaza today, currently, is justified at all," Arona Maskil, a 64-year-old demonstrator, told AFP.

The government says its renewed offensive is aimed at forcing Hamas to free its remaining captives, although critics charge that it puts them in mortal danger.

A statement from the Hostages and Missing Families Forum argued that "any escalation in the fighting will put the hostages ... in immediate danger".

To display this content from YouTube, you must enable advertisement tracking and audience measurement.

Accept Manage my choices

One of your browser extensions seems to be blocking the video player from loading. To watch this content, you may need to disable it on this site.

Try again

Gaza's civil defence agency on Sunday said Israeli strikes on the Palestinian territory killed 16 people, including at least three children.

Six people were killed in overnight air strikes in Khan Younis governorate, in the south of the Gaza Strip, civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal said. They included two boys aged five and two, in an apartment in Al-Mawasi.

The civil defence later said 10 more people were killed in a strike on a tent also in Al-Mawasi, among them a child and seven women.

The Israeli military did not immediately respond for comment when contact by AFP. A spokesperson said they were gathering details.

Rescue workers and residents combed the rubble for survivors with their bare hands, under the light of hand-held torches, an AFP journalist reported.

Neighbour Fayka Abu Hatab said she "saw a bright light, then there was an explosion, and dust covered the entire area".

"We couldn't see anything, it all went dark," she said.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP and Reuters)