Israel Now Controls Almost Half of Gaza City, Military Says

Israel’s military said on Thursday that it was in control of nearly half of Gaza City before its planned full-scale takeover of the city, where hundreds of thousands of people are believed to be sheltering in ruined buildings and shabby tents.

Last month, Israel said it would expand its attacks in Gaza City, which Israeli officials have portrayed as one of Hamas’s last strongholds in the Gaza Strip.

Brig. Gen. Effie Defrin, a military spokesman, said yesterday that Israeli forces had taken control of 40 percent of Gaza City’s territory and were active in the neighborhoods of Zeitoun, Sheikh Radwan and Shuja’iyya. He said Israeli soldiers had recovered the bodies of 10 hostages in the city’s eastern outskirts.

The military has already carried out widespread destruction in parts of Gaza City in recent weeks.

The prospect of a full-scale offensive on the city, the largest urban center in Gaza, has the potential to exacerbate an already-dire humanitarian crisis for the hundreds of thousands of civilians sheltering there. Many of them have fled Israeli bombardment multiple times since the war began 22 months ago, crisscrossing the Gaza Strip to escape offensive after offensive, and now struggle to find food and clean water.

The war began after the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, terror attack on Israel, in which roughly 1,200 were killed and 250 more taken hostage. Since then, fighting has killed more than 60,000 Palestinians, according to the local health ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants. The war has destroyed Gaza’s civil infrastructure and led to famine in parts of the territory, according to a recent report by a panel of global food experts.

The planned attack of Gaza City has also been criticized by the families of Israeli hostages held by Hamas, who say any large-scale operation could imperil their loved ones further. Those concerns were renewed on Friday when Hamas released a video of two hostages, Guy Gilboa-Dalal and Alon Ohel.

Mr. Gilboa-Dalal said in the video that it was filmed on Aug. 28 and that he and other hostages were being held in Gaza City. Israeli officials have said they believe roughly 20 of the hostages held in Gaza are still alive.

Rights groups and international law experts say that hostage videos are, by definition, made under duress, and that the statements in them are usually coerced.

In a post on social media, Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s minister of national security, called the release of the video “psychological terrorism intended to stop us from pursuing the action in Gaza.”

Abu Bakr Bashir and Johnatan Reiss contributed reporting