Israeli defense forces announced on Friday evening that it had launched the first stages of a major offensive in the Gaza Strip, nicknamed “Gideon’s Chariots”, which will seek to “seize the strategic areas” of the racing band led by Hamas, where the authorities have reported dozens killed in heavy Israeli trepisse during the night and Saturday morning.
In a statement, the soldiers said that “during the last day, the FDIs launched large attacks and mobilized the forces to grasp the strategic areas of the Gaza Strip, as part of the opening movements of Operation Gideon Chariots and the expansion of the campaign in Gaza, to achieve all the objectives of the war in Gaza, including the release of the hosts and the defeat of Hamas.”
“TSAhal troops in the southern command will continue to operate to protect Israeli citizens and achieve the objectives of the war,” added the army.
The Palestinian media reported on Saturday that the Tsahals’ ground troops had progressed overnight to Deir al-Balah from Central Gaza. According to reports, heavy artillery fires and air strikes were carried out in the east region of Deir al-Balah as the forces advanced.
Deir al-Balah is one of the few areas of the band where Israel has not sent troops to the ground since the assault on Hamas on October 7, 2023, which sparked the war in Gaza. Land forces have already operated on the outskirts of the city, but not deep in him.
Social media users published photos of what they said to be leaflets that the FDIs had dispersed in the city district, asking residents to flee. It was not immediately clear if the leaflets were authentic.
The leaflets that the FDI distributed in Gaza before it entered the operation “Gideon’s Chariots” pic.twitter.com/gi83w6ypq
– Niv Calderon (@nivcalderon) May 17, 2025
The reported leaflet presented the IDF logo on a corner and a star of David subtitled “Rights Conquest”, in Arabic, in the other corner. In a background that showed a sea in destroyed buildings, the leaflet cited a Koranic verse on “separation of the sea”, and below a message: “The residents of Gaza, the Israeli army is approaching”.
According to Israeli officials, the operation would see the FDI “conquer” Gaza and keep the territory, attack Hamas, prevent the terrorist group from taking control of humanitarian aid supplies and moving the Palestinians from northern Gaza to its south.
An Israeli defense official said earlier this month that the operation would not be launched before the end of the four-day tour of the Middle East of US President Donald Trump.
The tour coincided with the resumption of the talks of Gaza Truce-Hostage in Qatar after the Liberation of the United States of the Captive Israeli-American soldier Edan Alexander. The talks have made little progress in the midst of Israel’s refusal to end the war until Hamas was defeated.
The Palestinians inspect the damage caused by an Israeli air strike which struck tents at the Al-Aqsa hospital in Deir al-Balah, Central Gaza Strip, May 17, 2025. (AP Photo / Abdel Kareem Hana)
Hamas authorities say dozens killed in air strikes
Air strikes were reported on Saturday in the regions of Khan Younis, in southern Gaza, and Jabalia, in the north of the strip. Marwan Al-Sultan, director of the Indonesian Hospital of Northern Gaza, said on Saturday morning that the medical center had received since midnight “58 martyrs, while a large number of victims remain under the rubble”.
The Sultan said that the situation at the hospital was “tragic and catastrophic after his environment was targeted this morning, causing the collapse of the ceilings and cracks in the walls.”
“Operating rooms and intensive care units are completely full, and we cannot receive other critical cases,” he said.
He added that there was “a serious shortage of blood units, drugs, medical and therapeutic supplies and surgical procedures”.
Doctors had been forced to propose blood for transfusions of other patients and even of themselves “due to the impossibility of citizens’ gifts due to malnutrition,” said the Sultan.
Meanwhile, the Hamas civil defense agency said 10 bodies had been brought to Gaza hospitals after strikes on Saturday morning.
Israeli tanks parked in a gathering area in the south of Israel, near the border with Gaza, Friday May 16, 2025. (Photo AP / Maya Allerzzo)
Agency’s spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP that three people had been killed and four injured in drone strikes east of Khan Younis, while three others were killed and several injured in the bombing of a house in Jabalia.
An attack on an apartment northwest of Khan Younis killed three people, while a person was killed and five injured, “including a girl, a young woman and a pregnant woman”, in a strike on a tent west of the city, he added.
More than 300 gasans have been killed in Israeli strikes since Thursday, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health, which says that more than 53,000 people in the Strip have been killed or are presumed to be dead in the war so far.
Tolls cannot be checked and do not make the difference between civilians and combatants. Israel said he was trying to minimize civilian deaths and stresses that Hamas uses Gaza civilians as human shields, fighting in civil areas, including houses, hospitals, schools and mosques.
Israel says that he killed some 20,000 combat fighters in January, and 1,600 terrorists inside the country during the October 7 assault, when thousands of terrorists led by Hamas killed some 1,200 people and took 251 hostages.
The displaced Palestinians flee Beit Lahiya in the midst of military operations in progress in the Gaza Strip and arrive in Jabalia, Northern Gaza, May 16, 2025. (AP Photo / Jehad Alshrafi)
The chief of the UN `alarmed ” by the extended Gaza offensive
Speaking at a summit of the Arab League in Baghdad on Saturday, the United Nations, Antonio Guterres, expressed his astonishment in the extended operation of Israel in the besieged band.
“We need a permanent ceasefire now,” said Guterres. “I am alarmed by the reported plans of Israel to extend the ground operations and even more.”
Her comment followed a statement from the UN chief Tom Fletcher, Tom Fletcher, rejecting a proposal supported by the United States to provide help to Gaza without her going to Hamas.
“For those who offer an alternative modality for aid distribution, let’s not waste time. We already have a plan,” he said, adding that the UN had a proven plan and 160,000 relief pallets ready to enter the Palestinian enclave now.
The Palestinians expect food given in a distribution center in Beit Lahiya, Northern Gaza, March 16, 2025. (AP Photo / Abdel Kareem Hana / File)
Fletcher rapped Israel’s mission to the UN this week after telling the corps security council from acting “to prevent a genocide” in Gaza. Israel angryly rejected the accusation that he permeated a genocide.
Israel interrupted the flow of aid to Gaza on March 2, a few hours after the first phase of the Gaza ceasefire expired in the middle of the refusal of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to negotiate the second phase, which would have required war. On March 18, Israel resumed hostilities in Gaza with a surprise series of deadly air strikes.
After the first 42 -day phase and the Liberation of Edan Alexander on Monday, the terrorist groups in Gaza still hold 58 hostages, of which at least 35 were confirmed dead, of which a killed soldier fighting in the 2014 Gaza War.
