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Israel builds up military ahead of Gaza City offensive

Israel intensified its military build-up on Tuesday as reservists began responding to call-up orders ahead of a planned offensive to capture Gaza City, nearly two years into a devastating war. Despite mounting pressure at home and abroad to end its campaign in the Palestinian territory, Israel is gearing up to seize Gaza’s largest city — intensifying bombardments and operating in the outskirts in recent days.The United Nations estimates that nearly a million people live in Gaza City and its surroundings, where a famine has been declared.In a statement, the military said it had in recent days “been carrying out logistical and operational preparations ahead of expanded combat operations and the large-scale mobilisation of reservists.”Israeli media reported that reservists began responding to draft orders, with Channel 12 saying a second wave was expected in November.Approving the military’s plans for the conquest of Gaza City in late August, Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said he had authorised the call-up of about 60,000 reservists.At the time, an Israeli military official told journalists the draft would begin in September and that the main forces operating in Gaza in the next stage of the campaign would be active duty forces, not reservists.On the ground in Gaza, the civil defence agency said at least 45 people had been killed by Israeli forces, including 10 in an air strike on a residential building in the southwest of Gaza City.AFP footage from the aftermath of the strike in the Tel al-Hawa neighbourhood showed rescue workers sifting through piles of rubble and mangled metal on the top floor of the building, from where Palestinians retrieved the body of a dead girl.”We were sleeping safely in our homes and suddenly we woke up to the sound of bombing and destruction and found most of our neighbours murdered and injured,” said Sanaa al-Dreimli, who witnessed the strike.”We woke up to lifeless bodies. What is the fault of these children? What did we do for this to happen to us?”Contacted by AFP, the Israeli military requested precise timeframes and coordinates to look into the civil defence figures, but said it could check one incident in which the rescue agency reported four killed by Israeli gunfire near an aid point in the centre of the territory.Media restrictions in Gaza and difficulties in accessing many areas mean AFP is unable to independently verify the tolls and details provided by the civil defence agency or the Israeli military.- Evacuation ‘incomprehensible’ -The military last week declared Gaza City a “dangerous combat zone”, while a spokesman said the evacuation of the population hub was “inevitable”.The International Committee of the Red Cross has warned any Israeli attempt to evacuate the city would be impossible to do in a safe and dignified manner.The dire state of shelter, healthcare and nutrition in Gaza meant evacuation was “not only unfeasible but incomprehensible under the present circumstances,” ICRC president Mirjana Spoljaric said in a statement.Pressure is growing on Israel to halt its offensive, which it says is aimed at eradicating Hamas and returning hostages seized by Palestinian militants in their October 7, 2023 attack that sparked the war.Belgium on Tuesday became the latest Western country to say it will recognise the State of Palestine at the UN General Assembly this month, following similar announcements by Australia, Canada and France.In a post on X, Belgian Foreign Minister Maxime Prevot said that “firm sanctions are being imposed against the Israeli government” and that the decision came “in view of the humanitarian tragedy” unfolding in Gaza.Hamas’s October 2023 attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.Of the 251 hostages seized during Hamas’s 2023 attack, 47 are still being held in Gaza, including 25 the military says are dead.Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 63,557 Palestinians, most of them civilians, according to figures from the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza that the United Nations considers reliable.

Freed Hamas hostage Or Levy on a ‘mission’ in South Africa

Tears streamed down the faces of some of the hundreds of people gathered in a synagogue in Johannesburg as Or Levy described his release after 491 days as a hostage of Hamas.Levy was brought to South Africa, the country that filed a case of genocide against Israel at the International Court of Justice, by the local branch of the Jewish National Fund (JNF), a state-linked Israeli organisation.Since May 2024, local Jewish groups have organised at least 16 similar events with former captives, survivors or families of victims of the militant group’s October 7, 2023 attack.Levy’s release in February was “simultaneously the best and worst day of my life”, said the 30-something, still gaunt six months later.It was the day he learned that his wife had been among more than 360 people killed in Hamas’ attack on the Supernova Music Festival, when he was among 40 others captured.It was also when he was reunited with his four-year-old son. “He just told me: ‘Mom is dead’. I know, it’s the hardest sentence to hear from a child,” said Levy to the weeping audience, a yellow ribbon pinned to his suit in honour of those still in captivity. The attack on the festival was only one part of a Hamas-led raid on Israel that resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures. Of 251 hostages seized in total, 47 are still held in Gaza, including 25 the Israeli military says are dead.Israel’s return offensive has killed more than 63,000 Palestinians, most of them civilians, according to figures from the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza that the United Nations considers reliable.Levy was visiting South Africa after a similar four-week tour in the United States.  The public talks are “kind of therapeutic for me”, Levy told AFP after his hour-long address. “It’s hard, but it helps.”- Bring them home -“I can tell you that in 2024, I only saw the sunlight once,” he recounted to his mostly elderly audience of about 500 people. That was in January when the tunnel in which he was being held was bombed and everyone fled outside, made to return 30 minutes later.He was treated “like a dog”, he said, fed once a day — usually a pita bread and two cans of food for four people — and losing 20 kilogrammes (44 pounds).”We were shackled for the entire time,” he said. The ties were only loosened for short showers, around every two months.For audience member Diane Wolfson, Levy’s testimony was the most moving yet. “The more I hear, the harder it gets,” she said.”For me, the main mission is to bring everyone back,” Levy told AFP. “I think that everyone needs to hear what I’ve been through and what others are still going through.”South Africa is home to around 50,000 Jews, according to local estimates, and the Jewish community has produced admired stalwarts of the fight against apartheid, including Nelson Mandela’s ally Joe Slovo and lawyer and judge Albie Sachs.Some South African Jews are critical of Israel’s treatment of Palestinians, likening it to apartheid-era discrimination, and Israel’s war in Gaza has divided the community.The groups bringing through survivors of the 2023 attack “are desperately trying to stop the haemorrhaging support for the genocide in the Jewish community”, said Rina King from the South African Jews for a Free Palestine (SAJFP).It was an attempt to “counter the dominant narrative” of the Israel-Hamas conflict by focusing on the militant action and “presenting themselves as victims”, she said.”More and more” Jews are supporting SAJFP, she told AFP.- ‘Demonising’ -The JNF is organising a similar visit to Australia by Eli Sharabi, held in the same tunnel as Levy. There have been others in countries like Britain and Canada.  “They ask a traumatised person to relive their trauma over and over again,” Steven Friedman, a professor of political science at the University of Johannesburg, told AFP.”The initiative claims to support victims, but in reality, it’s about demonising the other side,” said the author of “Good Jew, Bad Jew” (2023), which critiques the notion that Jews must support Israeli policy. Ahead of Levy’s address, the Israeli embassy deputy head of mission Ariel Seidman — the most senior Israeli diplomat in South Africa since the ambassador was recalled in 2023 — said to the audience: “What we need is unity.”The former hostage told AFP his trip to South Africa was more important than going to countries that were in full support of his cause and where he would be merely “preaching to the choir”.