Five Divisions, 60,000 Reservists and a Plan to Take Gaza City

The Israeli military was preparing a major offensive against Hamas in Gaza City involving five divisions and tens of thousands of troops, the Israel Defense Forces said in a briefing issued through the Press Service of Israel on 20 August 2025. The force was to include 12 brigade-level combat teams, each combining infantry, armour, artillery, combat engineers and support units. The Gaza Division’s northern and southern brigades, normally assigned to the border itself, were to join, bringing the total to 14 brigade-level teams.

The operation, called Gideon’s Chariots B, was already in its preparatory phase, with units moving on the outskirts of Gaza City. The Nahal Infantry Brigade and the 7th Armored Brigade were operating in the Zeitoun neighbourhood, and the Givati Infantry Brigade had begun a push in Kafr Jabalia in the north of the city. Defence Minister Israel Katz approved the plan on the Tuesday, and it was due to be presented to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the cabinet on the Thursday.

The scale of the call-up

Israel was mobilising 60,000 reservists in several waves, the briefing said, with the first 40,000 to 50,000 due to report on 2 September. A second wave was planned for late 2025 and a third for early 2026. Regular soldiers’ service was to be extended by 30 to 40 days, and at the operation’s peak the military expected up to 130,000 reservists on active duty across Gaza, Judea and Samaria and northern Israel.

The Times of Israel reported the same call-up on 20 August 2025, adding that the service of 20,000 reservists already on duty would be extended, that later waves were expected in November-December 2025 and February-March 2026, and that Katz signed off after meeting the chief of staff, Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir, and Shin Bet representatives.

The plan for the civilians

The military said it was building humanitarian infrastructure in southern Gaza for an estimated one million civilians expected to be displaced, with field hospitals and additional aid distribution points planned, and the European Hospital in Khan Yunis (closed after the IDF said it found a Hamas tunnel beneath it) expected to reopen. “As part of the preparations to move the population from Gaza City to the southern Gaza Strip, talks have begun with international organizations to recruit them to establish additional field hospitals in the south, and there is a positive response to this,” a security official said. “The UN and the organizations have begun formulating a plan to restart the European Hospital as an additional medical response,” the official added.

Civilian preparations were being run through the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, the Israeli defence ministry body known as COGAT, which handles civil affairs in Gaza and the West Bank. International organisations were expected to help operate facilities in the central refugee camps and in Mawasi, on the coast, where displaced residents were to relocate.

What actually happened next

The operation went ahead. FDD’s Long War Journal reported on 14 September 2025 that this second phase followed a first phase running from May to July 2025 that had left Israel in control of roughly 70 per cent of the Gaza Strip; that by 5 September the military held about 40 per cent of Gaza City; that around 300,000 Palestinians had already left Gaza City; and that on 12 September Israeli forces struck 500 targets in a single day of preparation.

Seven weeks after the offensive began it stopped. The same publication reported that a United States-brokered ceasefire took effect on 13 October 2025, that Hamas released the 20 remaining living hostages, and that the remains of 22 deceased hostages had been handed back by early November.

Why the hostages framed the argument

The briefing restated the political objective as defeating Hamas. “Two out of five brigades of Hamas’ military wing remain,” an IDF source said, and “the Chief of Staff believes in the need to defeat Hamas”, though the military did not define what would count as achieving it. The release also recorded that about 1,200 people were killed and 252 Israelis and foreigners taken hostage on 7 October 2023, and that of the 50 hostages then remaining, around 30 were believed to be dead. The Anti-Defamation League’s timeline puts the number abducted at 251 and records the release of the last 20 living hostages on 13 October 2025.

What the briefing did not settle

The military did not define the criteria for defeating Hamas, did not give a timetable for the operation, and did not say how long displaced civilians would be expected to stay in the south or how their movement would be managed. The security official quoted on the humanitarian arrangements was not named, and the United Nations agencies said to have responded positively were not identified.