Even with a U.S.-brokered ceasefire currently in place to de-escalate hostilities in the Gaza Strip, Israel has steadily extended its territorial control across nearly 60% of the enclave as it finalizes military plans for a potential full resumption of war, Israel’s Army Radio reported Sunday.
Citing senior Israeli military officials, the state-run broadcaster confirmed that top defense commanders are pushing for an immediate return to offensive operations, framing the current moment as a strategic window to achieve their stated goal of dismantling Hamas. Full operational plans for renewed attacks have already been finalized by military planners, with only a final greenlight from Israel’s civilian political leadership still pending.
As part of this military redeployment, the Israeli Defense Forces have drawn down troop presence in southern Lebanon to reposition multiple combat brigades to both Gaza and the occupied West Bank, the report added. Senior officials also noted that the IDF has recorded a gradual uptick in armed clashes and hostile actions across the frontlines in recent weeks.
The expansion of Israeli control centers on the so-called “Yellow Line,” a unilateral demarcation Israel established to mark the territory under its military control. When the ceasefire took effect, Israel already held roughly half of Gaza’s total territory; it has since pushed this boundary deeper into the enclave, forcing the entire remaining Palestinian population to crowd into just 40% of Gaza’s original land mass, with Israeli troops permanently stationed across the 60% of territory spanning the enclave’s north, south and eastern sectors.
The current ceasefire was mediated by the United States in October 2024, designed to end more than a year of full-scale Israeli military operations in Gaza that the text refers to as genocide. The deal’s core terms called for a halt to offensive attacks, the opening of border crossings to allow life-saving humanitarian aid into the blockaded territory, and a phased withdrawal of all Israeli forces from Gaza in later stages of the agreement.
But Israel has violated the ceasefire agreement repeatedly from its start, according to data from the Palestinian Ministry of Health, which records that near-daily Israeli shelling and raids have killed at least 832 Palestinians since the truce went into effect. Overall, the death toll from Israeli operations in Gaza since October 2023 has surpassed 72,000 Palestinians, with thousands more still unaccounted for and trapped under rubble from destroyed residential and infrastructure buildings.
The ceasefire agreement also required Israel to remove entry restrictions to allow a minimum of 600 aid trucks carrying food, fuel, medical equipment, emergency shelter materials and commercial goods to enter Gaza daily. But local Gaza authorities report that Israeli bureaucratic and security limits have kept average daily aid deliveries to just over 200 trucks, far below the agreed-upon threshold, worsening a already catastrophic humanitarian crisis for the 2 million Palestinians crowded into the shrinking enclave.
This report comes from Middle East Eye, an outlet that provides independent, specialized coverage of developments across the Middle East, North Africa and surrounding regions.