MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Israel is moving ahead with a new mission to take control of Gaza City.
LEILA FADEL, HOST:
The Israeli military is calling up tens of thousands of soldiers. And the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has ordered military officials to speed up preparations to seize Gaza's biggest city. At the very same time, Israel is considering a new offer for a two-month ceasefire with Hamas.
MARTIN: NPR's Daniel Estrin is on the line from Tel Aviv to tell us more about this. Good morning, Daniel.
DANIEL ESTRIN, BYLINE: Good morning, Michel.
MARTIN: So can you just help us make sense of this? What direction is Israel heading in here, a ceasefire or expanding the war and taking territory?
ESTRIN: Israel is giving off contradictory signals. On the one hand, the military yesterday called up 60,000 new reservist soldiers. They're to report for duty beginning in September, and that will bring the total number to 120,000 mobilized reservists. That's a huge number. The plan is to encircle Gaza City, send soldiers in, and then later on send soldiers to central Gaza. These are the last major areas Israel has not yet taken over because it's where hostages are believed to be held. At the same time, there is a ceasefire offer on the table since Monday.
Egypt and Qatar finally got Hamas to accept that offer without any changes, and now the ball is in Israel's court and Israel has not yet replied. But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has put out statements that suggest Israel does not like the offer. Hostage families, people who have loved ones held in Gaza, are calling on Israel to accept the deal on the table, not to carry out the Gaza City operation that could endanger their loved ones in Gaza. There were major protests earlier this week calling for a deal with Hamas. And so Israel finds itself at a major crossroads in the war, and it has not decided what strategic direction to take.
MARTIN: If Israel does go ahead with plans to capture Gaza City, what would that look like, and what's the military objective?
ESTRIN: Well, Israel sees Gaza City as a major stronghold of Hamas. Soldiers are already beginning to carry out strikes on the outskirts of the city as kind of initial steps of beginning this new operation. It would be a major offensive, and it would be very complex. It would entail Israel ordering the displacement of many hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to southern Gaza near the Egyptian border, and aid groups are warning that would only exacerbate the humanitarian crisis. And it also makes Egypt very nervous about Palestinians streaming potentially across the border into Egypt. It would also be a very tough fight, and there was a rare incident in southern Gaza yesterday that provided a preview of what may come.
There were more than 15 Hamas militants who stormed an Israeli military outpost in southern Gaza. One soldier was severely wounded, according to Israel and Israel estimates it was an attempt to take a soldier hostage. So that just shows that Hamas does have guerrilla units and does have battlefield motivation. But, Michel, this might not be an either/or, either a Gaza City offensive or a ceasefire deal. Israeli media are quoting the defense minister as saying in a closed forum that just starting the ground operation in Gaza City and entering the city could force Hamas to agree to a more comprehensive ceasefire and hostage deal.
MARTIN: So, Daniel, before we let you go, what is the ceasefire deal on the table, and why would Israel not accept it?
ESTRIN: They are the same terms that the U.S. had actually proposed weeks ago. It would be a 60-day ceasefire. Hamas would release half of the hostages. There'd be a surge of humanitarian aid to Gaza, where the world's experts on hunger and famine say famine is unfolding. But Israel is now publicly demanding all the hostages in Gaza be released, not half. And so Netanyahu is under the same political pressure. If he agrees to kind of a ceasefire deal now, his far-right political partners could topple his government.
MARTIN: That is NPR's Daniel Estrin in Tel Aviv. Daniel, thank you.
ESTRIN: You're welcome. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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