Israel planning renewed Gaza offensive in March, report says Submitted by MEE staff on Sat, 01/10/2026 - 22:47 Military seeks to seize more land in Gaza and push the Yellow Line further west towards the coast, Israeli media reports Plumes of smoke rise after the Israeli army carried out house demolitions east of Jabalia, in the northern Palestinian Gaza Strip, on January 10, 2026. Bashar TALEB / AFP Off The Israeli military has planned to launch a renewed offensive in Gaza in March to seize more land and push the Yellow Line further west towards the coast of the enclave, Times of Israel reported , quoting officials. Even as the ceasefire moves closer to the second phase, the Israeli military has drawn up plans for the offensive, citing failure in getting Hamas to disarm, the report quoted an Arab diplomat as saying. On 10 October 2025, the US brokered a ceasefire under which Israeli forces pulled back to the Yellow Line, allowing them control of more than half of Gaza, roughly 53 per cent of the Strip. The operation reportedly planned for March is focused on Gaza City and could see Israel build on the area under its control, the report said. Hamas spokesperson Hazem Qassem on Saturday said that the group has a "clear decision to dissolve the governmental bodies that manage affairs in the Gaza Strip and hand them over to the technocratic committee". The group has accused Israel of violating the ceasefire agreement and obstructing the transition to a second phase of the US-backed plan for Gaza, which includes an international stabilisation force. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has opposed Turkey’s participation in the force, which has discouraged other potential partners such as Azerbaijan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Indonesia from contributing troops. Israel has repeatedly violated the ceasefire, killing 439 Palestinians in three months in nearly 1,200 violations, including air strikes, shelling and the demolition of homes. “We call on the mediators and the countries guaranteeing the ceasefire agreement to condemn these grave violations, overseen by war criminal [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu on false and fabricated pretexts,” Hamas said in a statement on Friday. Since 7 October 2023, Israeli forces have killed more than 71,400 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, including at least 20,000 children, according to the Palestinian health ministry. Thousands more are missing under the rubble. Gaza's civil defence and rescue services lack the heavy equipment to retrieve the bodies, as the weather has made living conditions worse in the enclave. The UN agency for Palestinian refugees, Unrwa, has warned that the conditions are worsening an already dire humanitarian situation, with flooding and collapsing shelters placing vulnerable families at greater risk. According to a December report by the inter-agency Shelter Cluster, Storm Byron affected about 65,000 families, with more than one million people in need of emergency shelter assistance. Israeli forces have maintained a blockade on Gaza, keeping boundary crossings closed and severely restricting humanitarian aid. Gaza enters 2026 with more deaths and Israeli attacks Read More » Philippe Lazzarini, head of Unrwa, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, said assistance “is still not at scale”. “People are still living in fragile shelters,” he told Anadolu Agency on Thursday. “Only tents that are not waterproof have arrived, which do not protect the population. People continue to lack almost everything.” The UN humanitarian affairs office (Ocha) said on Tuesday that recent storms have also damaged temporary learning spaces and roads used by humanitarian organisations to deliver aid. A growing number of organisations and countries have also voiced criticism of Israel's restrictions on humanitarian relief, another violation of the US-brokered ceasefire. Aid organisations working in Gaza warned of "devastating" consequences after Israel announced it would ban them from operating. Doctors Without Borders, one of 37 organisations affected by these changes, said in a post on X that if it and other aid groups lose access to operate in Gaza and the West Bank , "hundreds of thousands of Palestinians would be cut off from essential care". Arab and European countries have demanded that Israel allow rights groups "sustainable, predictable and unrestricted" access to the territories, especially amid the difficult winter conditions. Israel's genocide in Gaza News Post Date Override 0 Update Date Mon, 05/04/2020 - 21:19 Update Date Override 0