LAST UPDATE | 21 Aug 2025

ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER Benjamin Netanyahu has said he has ordered immediate negotiations aimed at freeing all the remaining hostages in Gaza, as Israeli troops hammered the territory’s largest city amid a planned takeover. 

Israeli troops have seized control of the outskirts of Gaza City and intend to move in and take hold of it entirely, a day after the country’s defence minister authorised the call-up of about 60,000 reservists.

“I came today to approve the plans that the IDF presented to me and to the Defence Minister for taking control of Gaza City and defeating Hamas,” Netanyahu said in a video statement filmed during a visit to the Gaza division’s headquarters in Israel.

“In parallel, I have instructed to begin immediate negotiations for the release of all our hostages and the end of the war, on conditions that are acceptable for Israel.

“Those two things, the defeat of Hamas and the release of all our hostages, go hand in hand,” he added, without providing details about what the next stage of talks would entail.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the Gaza Division:
"We're at the decisive stage. I came today to the Gaza Division in order to approve the plans that the IDF presented to me and to the Defense Minister for taking control of Gaza City and defeating Hamas. pic.twitter.com/07VxSaHfQ1

— Prime Minister of Israel (@IsraeliPM) August 21, 2025

Meditators have been waiting for days for an official Israeli response to their latest ceasefire proposal, which Hamas accepted earlier this week.

The new deal proposes an initial 60-day truce, a partial hostage release, the freeing of some Palestinian prisoners and provisions allowing for the entry of aid.

Israel’s plans to expand its offensive and seize Gaza City have sparked international outcry as well as domestic opposition, with the Red Cross today calling the moves “intolerable”.

Earlier today, the Israeli military said it has informed “medical officials and international organizations in the northern Gaza Strip… to prepare for the evacuation of the population to the southern Gaza Strip”. 

According to the statement, the military has informed relevant parties in Gaza to begin making plans to relocate hospital equipment to the south.

‘The house shakes all night long’

“The officers emphasized to the medical officials that adjustments are being made to the hospital infrastructure in the south of the Strip to receive the sick and wounded, alongside an increased entry of necessary medical equipment,” said the statement.

An Israeli military official said yesterday that the operation would be “precise and targeted” in and around Gaza City, including some areas where the Israeli Defence Forces have not previously operated.

Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have already had to leave their homes and flee the city to try to save their lives, with many more now leaving everything behind to try to escape from Israel’s ground offensive.

Meanwhile, Gaza City residents described relentless Israeli bombardments overnight.

“The house shakes with us all night long – the sound of explosions, artillery, warplanes, ambulances, and cries for help is killing us,” one of them, Ahmad al-Shanti, told AFP.

Palestinians mourn over the bodies of people killed either by Israeli military strikes or while trying to reach aid trucks, outside Shifa Hospital, in Gaza City. Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

“The sound is getting closer, but where would we go?”

Another resident, Amal Abdel-Aal, said she watched the heavy strikes on the area, a week after being displaced from her home in Gaza City’s Al-Sabra neighbourhood.

No one in Gaza has slept – not last night, not for a week. The artillery and air strikes in the east never stop. The sky flashes all night long.

Gaza civil defence agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal said air strikes and artillery fire overnight targeted areas to the northwest and southeast of Gaza City.

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West Bank settlement project

At the same time, Israel has approved a major resettlement project in part of the occupied West Bank which has received international condemnation.

The Israeli settlement would be located on an area covering 12 square kilometres east of Jerusalem. 

UN chief Antonio Guterres said the settlement would effectively cleave the West Bank in two and pose an “existential threat” to a contiguous Palestinian state.

Today, Ireland was among 21 countries to sign a joint statement calling Israel’s approval of the settlement “unacceptable and a violation of international law”.

All of Israel’s settlements in the West Bank, occupied since 1967, are considered illegal under international law, regardless of whether they have Israeli planning permission.

The Palestinian Authority said the move “undermines the chances of implementing the two-state solution, establishing a Palestinian state on the ground, and fragments its geographic and demographic unity”.

Aviv Tatarsky, a researcher at Ir Amim, an Israeli NGO focusing on Jerusalem within the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, condemned the greenlighting of the project.

“Today’s approval demonstrates how determined Israel is in pursuing what Minister Smotrich has described as a strategic programme to bury the possibility of a Palestinian state and to effectively annex the West Bank,” he said.

Israel heavily restricts the movement of West Bank Palestinians, who must obtain permits from authorities to travel through checkpoints to cross into east Jerusalem or Israel.

Additional reporting by Jane Moore and AFP