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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
World
Dan Sabbagh Defence and security editor

Israel’s military strategy threatens to make a desperate situation utterly dire

Smoke billows from building
Fighting resumed on 1 December 2023 after the expiration of a seven-day truce between Israel and Hamas. Photograph: Ismael Mohamad/UPI/Shutterstock

Israel’s Defense Forces waited just four minutes after the truce expired at 7am before restarting bombing, according to one resident of Khan Younis. An hour later, its military set out its plan for the “next stage of the war”: a division of Gaza into dozens of numbered “evacuation areas”, a core part of the military’s plan to gradually take control of the southern part of the strip.

The military’s plan, canvassed privately this week, is to avoid a repeat of the blanket bombing of the northern Gaza in the crowded south, with sequential, targeted bombing campaigns. Under the plan, people in certain numbered districts of Gaza will be told to evacuate before bombing begins, although how much time they will get is not clear; homes in Khan Younis were among the targets struck on Friday hours after the truce expired, and residents were given little if any time to flee.

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