AP News By MELANIE LIDMAN, SAM METZ and SAMY MAGDY
Israel’s military said Wednesday it will call up 60,000 reservists ahead of an expanded military operation in Gaza City. Many residents have chosen to stay despite the danger, fearing nowhere is safe in a territory facing shortages of food, water and other necessities.
Calling up extra military reservists is part a plan Defense Minister Israel Katz approved to begin a new phase of operations in some of Gaza’s most densely populated areas, the military said. The plan, which is expected to receive the chief of staff’s final approval in the coming days, also includes extending the service of 20,000 additional reservists who are already on active duty.
In a country of fewer than 10 million people, the call-up of reservists is the largest in months and carries economic and political weight. It comes days after hundreds of thousands of Israelis rallied for a ceasefire, as negotiators scramble to get Israel and Hamas to agree to end their 22 months of fighting, and as rights groups warn that an expanded assault could deepen the crisis in the Gaza Strip, where most of the roughly 2 million inhabitants have been displaced, many areas have been reduced to rubble, and the population faces the threat of famine.
Gaza City operation could begin within days
An Israeli military official, speaking on the condition of anonymity in line with military regulations, said troops will operate in parts of Gaza City where they haven’t been deployed yet and where Israel believes Hamas is still active. Israeli troops in the the city’s Zeitoun neighborhood and in Jabaliya, a refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip, are already preparing the groundwork for the expanded operation, which could begin within days.
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