(Jerusalem) Israel began to recall tens of thousands of reservists for an expansion of its offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, Israeli media reported on Saturday.
Posted at 8:12 a.m. Updated at 5.54 p.m.
Marc Jourdier Agency France-Presse
Questioned by AFP, the Israeli army neither confirmed or denied this information while Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu, subject to the pressure of his extreme right supporters without which he would lose his majority, multiplies the comments go to war.
On Saturday evening, he attacked Qatar, Émirat who leads with Egypt mediation for a truce with Hamas and a hostage liberation agreement still held by the Palestinian Islamist movement or his allies in the Gaza Strip, enjoining him to “stop his double game and his double language”.
“Israel will win this legitimate war with legitimate means,” he added, seeming to mean the end of any negotiation, just hours after the publication by the armed branch of Hamas of a video of a apparently injured Russian-Israeli hostage.
PHOTO HATEM KHALED, REUTERS
An Israeli strike hit Khan Younès in the south of the Gaza Strip on May 3, 2025.
Since Israel ended on March 18 to two months from a truce in the war launched by the unprecedented attack in Hamas on October 7, 2023, Mr. Netanyahu continues to repeat that the intensification of military pressure is the only way to force the Palestinian Islamist movement to make the hostages.
Catastrophe for humanity
The truce allowed the return of 33 Israeli hostages, including eight dead, in exchange for the release of around 1800 Palestinians held by Israel.
Since March 18, Israeli bombing on the Gaza Strip have been daily and the army has regained control of large sections of the territory it had evacuated.
After improving during the truce, the humanitarian situation of some 2.4 million Palestinians in the territory is again catastrophic.
According to Israeli media, the army began to send these days of mobilization to reservists, providing for the tens of thousands with a view to expanding its offensive.
According to this information given in the same terms by several military correspondents, including that of the army radio, these reservists will have to replace called or active soldiers across the country as well as in the occupied West Bank so that they can be sent to fight in Gaza.
Relatives of AFP journalists have already received their “TSAV 8” (mobilization order).
According to public television, the Israeli security firm must meet on Sunday with a view to approving the widening of the military offensive in Gaza.
The attack on Hamas commandos in southern Israel on October 7, 2023 resulted in the death of 1218 people on the Israeli side, most civilians, according to an AFP count based on official figures.
Of the 251 people kidnapped that day, 58 are still retained in Gaza, 34 of which were declared dead by the Israeli army.
PHOTO HATEM KHALED, REUTERS
-A woman reacts as she attended the funeral of Palestinians killed in Israeli strikes, in Khan Younès, on May 3, 2025.
“Number 24”
Israel has sworn to destroy Hamas, which took power in Gaza in 2007, and launched a military reprisal campaign having devastated the Gaza Strip and left at least 52,495 dead, mostly civilians, according to figures from the Ministry of Health of Hamas for Gaza, deemed reliable by the UN.
The information on the recall of the reservists was published after the armed branch of Hamas broadcast a video in which a man elongated appears, his head and the left arm covered with bandages with brown tasks.
Speaking Hebrew with a Russian accent, he presents himself as “prisoner number 24” and suggests that he was injured in an Israeli bombardment.
AFP, like most Israeli media, has identified hostage as Maxim Herkin, who will be 37 years old at the end of May, but has no way of checking his state of health.
His family published a press release asking the media not to broadcast the video.
Naked
On Saturday evening, a few thousand Israelis brandishing portraits of hostages again gathered in Tel Aviv against the government and to demand a cease-fire allowing the release of the hostages.
PHOTO ARIEL SCHALIT, ASSOCIATED PRESS
People participate in a demonstration requesting the end of the war and the immediate release of the hostages held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip, and against the government of Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu in Tel Aviv, Israel, on May 3, 2025.
“We are here because we want the hostages to come home [et] We do not believe that the war in Gaza today still has the slightest justification, ”Arona Maskil, a 64 -year -old consultant, told AFP.
Before dawn, eleven Palestinians, including three young children were killed in an Israeli strike on the Khan Younès refugee camp, in the south of the Gaza Strip, according to local aid. The Israeli army confirmed the strike indicating that it had targeted “a Hamas terrorist”.
In the light of torches, rescuers and civilians searched with bare hands in the rubble to extract victims, according to AFP images. One of them leaves by carrying the inanimate body of a very young child.
Israel has submitted the Gaza Strip to a total blockade since March 2. In the absence of entry of the slightest humanitarian aid since that date, UN officials and NGOs are increasing warnings on a risk of famine.
Israel called to let journalists enter “without restriction”
The Association of the Foreign Press (FPA) called on Saturday Israel to allow journalists “without restrictions” at the Gaza Strip, where journalists cannot go independently from the outside since the start of the war in October 2023.
“We call Israel to […] Respect the fundamental principles of press freedom and to allow the entry without restriction of journalists to Gaza, “wrote the association, based in Jerusalem, in a press release published on the occasion of World Press Liberty Day.
The FPA has more than 350 members working for foreign media in Israel and in the Palestinian territories. An AFP journalist sits on his board of directors.
The association criticizes Israel “of imposing an unprecedented ban preventing foreign journalists from entering Gaza”, seeing “a shameful spot for a country which presents itself as a model of democracy”.
The FPA, which filed an appeal to the Israeli Supreme Court to contest this ban, welcomes “Palestinian colleagues who continue to cover news at the risk of their lives”, but regrets that “Israeli restrictions seriously harm the independent report and deprive the world of a complete image of the situation in Gaza. »»
