This came in a statement issued by the Israeli army after Tel Aviv declared Gaza City a "dangerous combat zone" last Friday. Israel has already been carrying out extensive airstrikes and bombing operations for more than three weeks, resulting in the deaths and injuries of numerous Palestinians and massive destruction in the stricken city.
The "Gideon 2" vehicles are a continuation of the "Gideon vehicles" launched by the Israeli army in the Gaza Strip between May 16 and August 6, and which Hebrew media reported as a failure.
According to the statement, Zamir conducted a field tour of the Gaza Strip today, accompanied by Southern Command Commander Yaniv Asor, 162nd Division Commander Sagiv Dahan, Givati, 401st, and 215th Brigades Commanders, and other commanders.
The statement quoted Zamir as saying: "We have embarked on the second phase of Operation Gideon's Armored Vehicles (referring to Gideon Armored Vehicles 2) to achieve the war's objectives," and claimed that "returning our abductees (the Israeli prisoners in Gaza) to their homes is a moral mission of national importance... We will continue to strike at Hamas's centers of gravity until we decide."
On Sunday, Channel 12 revealed a secret internal Israeli military document acknowledging the failure of Operation Gideon, launched in the Gaza Strip between May 16 and August 6, to achieve its stated objectives, most notably defeating Hamas and returning Israeli prisoners from the Gaza Strip.
On Tuesday, the official Israeli Broadcasting Authority said that the cost of the Israeli operation to occupy Gaza City ranged between 20 and 25 billion shekels ($5.91-$7.38 billion).
The Authority revealed that "the Israeli army has recruited the largest batch of reserve soldiers, numbering more than 35,000, as part of Operation Gideon 2 to occupy Gaza City," indicating that "in the coming weeks, approximately 25,000 more reserve soldiers will join them, bringing the number of soldiers recruited to occupy the city to 60,000."
Since August 13, 1,100 Palestinians have been killed and 6,008 others injured as a result of the ongoing Israeli military operation in Gaza City, according to the Ministry of Health in the Strip.
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Resistance operations
For their part, the Al-Qassam Brigades and the Al-Quds Brigades announced on Wednesday that they had targeted Israeli military vehicles that had penetrated the Al-Zeitoun neighborhood, southeast of Gaza City.
Al-Qassam Brigades said in a statement that its fighters shelled a gathering of Israeli soldiers and vehicles with mortar shells south of the Zeitoun neighborhood.
In a separate statement, Al-Qassam Brigades explained that its fighters targeted an Israeli D9 bulldozer with an Al-Yassin 105 anti-tank missile on Tuesday near Salah al-Din Mosque, south of the neighborhood.
For its part, the Al-Quds Brigades, the military wing of the Islamic Jihad movement, released a video clip showing the targeting of an Israeli vehicle after its fighters, in cooperation with Qassam Brigades fighters, emerged from a tunnel.
The Al-Quds Brigades added in a statement that fighters targeted an Israeli Eitan armored personnel carrier with a Kornet guided missile east of the Zeitoun neighborhood.
The Qassam Brigades and the Al-Quds Brigades did not explain the reasons for the delay in announcing details of the operations. However, the complex combat conditions on the ground in Gaza may prompt the factions to postpone revealing them until they can secure the safe withdrawal of their fighters and complete field documentation.
With American support, Israel has been committing genocide since October 7, 2023, leaving 63,746 Palestinians dead, 160,245 injured, most of them children and women, more than 9,000 missing, hundreds of thousands displaced, and a famine that has claimed the lives of 367 Palestinians, including 131 children,
