by Yaakov Lappin
"Operation Gideon’s Chariots" has led to IDF controlling 75% of Gaza, eliminating 2,000 terrorists, and striking 10,000 terror targets.
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Israel Defense Forces troops operate in Gaza City's southwestern Zeitoun quarter, Aug. 15, 2025. Credit: IDF. |
An Israeli military official has outlined the framework for the IDF’s upcoming operation in Gaza City, which is designed to complete the goal of eliminating Hamas as a governing and terrorist-military ruling entity in the Gaza Strip.
“We will be moving into a new phase of combat, a gradual, precise and targeted operation in and around Gaza City, which currently serves as Hamas’s main military and governing stronghold,” the official said, speaking on Wednesday.
He noted that five active-duty divisions would lead the operation, supported by a call-up of approximately 60,000 reservists beginning in September.
“All that said, in Gaza, the main forces operating on the next stage of the operation will be our active duty forces. We will have five divisions operating in Gaza in different operations focusing on Gaza City,” the official said.
He added that following the drafting of 60,000 reservists, the IDF will have a total of 120,000 reservists drafted in the coming months.
The source noted that the latest operations are targeting areas where the IDF has not previously conducted missions, and where Hamas continues to maintain terrorist infrastructure. “Hamas still possesses the capability—and the intent—to strike at our soldiers and our civilians,” he said, pointing to recent rocket fire aimed at Israeli population centers.
He stressed, “Our mission remains clear. It hasn’t changed a bit for almost two years: To bring our hostages home, every single one of them and to defeat Hamas, to dismantle its governing and military capabilities. To make sure they can never conduct another Oct. 7.”
The source described a plan carried out “in a gradual way,” adding, “It includes an expansion of our ongoing humanitarian air efforts and everything we’ve been doing nowadays with our humanitarian efforts. This is a top priority for us to ensure that Gazan civilians are kept out of harm’s way. And we will be providing advance warnings in order to distance the population from active combat areas.”
He added, “This is something we’ve done since the beginning of the war and we don’t plan on changing our tactics anytime soon. We will be acting in a way that is gradual and careful, making sure we provide the civil population with an opportunity to get out of harm’s way.”
The military official described the plan as including large-scale humanitarian steps that “simultaneously provide everything needed: food, shelter in areas and working on providing new field hospitals. This will be happening in the coming weeks.”
He detailed preparations to expand aid distribution sites, create humanitarian corridors, and provide advance warnings to allow civilians to evacuate active combat zones. Since Oct. 7, he noted, almost two million tons of aid have entered Gaza on over 100,000 trucks. “We want aid to reach the people of Gaza and not Hamas,” he said.
Gideon’s Chariots B
On Wednesday, Defense Minister Israel Katz approved plans for the next major phase of the war in Gaza, codenamed “Operation Gideon’s Chariots B.”
Katz visited the IDF’s Southern Command headquarters in Beersheva, where he officially approved the detailed operational plans for the takeover of Hamas’s last major stronghold in Gaza City.
“We are now calling our heroic soldiers to the flag, in reserves and active duty, to bring about the end of the war on the terms that Israel has set,” Katz stated. “I instruct you to use all tools and all force to strike the enemy until its submission, and to protect the lives of IDF soldiers. That is the supreme consideration, and those who have an issue with this should turn to me.”
This decision comes after the IDF released new figures on its gains during the initial phases of “Operation Gideon’s Chariots,” launched on March 18.
According to an IDF assessment, since the renewal of major ground operations in March, the military has achieved operational control over approximately 75% of the Gaza Strip, eliminated about 2,000 terrorists and senior officials—including Hamas’s military wing head Mohammad Sinwar—and struck approximately 10,000 terror targets.
This operational control enabled the IDF to significantly expand its activities, thereby striking Hamas’s capabilities and terrorist infrastructure as well as undermining its chain of command, said the military.
During the initial renewal of ground operations in March 2025 and throughout “Operation Gideon’s Chariots,” the IDF paved central corridors in the Gaza Strip intending to strike Hamas’s capabilities and defeat its brigades, including the Morag Corridor, splitting Hamas’s Rafah and Khan Yunis brigades and the Magen Oz Corridor, as well as splitting Hamas’s Khan Yunis Brigade from east to west.
The 10,000 terror targets struck by hundreds of fighter jets, aircraft, and naval vessels belonging to the Israeli Air Force and the Israeli Navy included the May 13, 2025, airstrike in the Khan Yunis area that eliminated the terrorists Mohammad Sinwar, head of the Hamas military wing; Mohammad Shabaneh, commander of Hamas’s Rafah Brigade; and Mahdi Quara, commander of the South Khan Yunis Battalion.
Commanders in Hamas’s General Security Apparatus, six senior commanders in the terrorist organization’s naval commando unit, and dozens of terrorists who infiltrated Israeli territory and took part in the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre, and hundreds of additional terrorists and military commanders have also been killed by the IDF.
On Wednesday morning, the IDF thwarted a major attack in southern Khan Yunis, when more than 15 terrorists emerged from a tunnel shaft and assaulted a post of the Kfir Brigade with gunfire and RPGs.
“In the battle that developed around the post, our troops repelled the terrorists,” an IDF official stated. “The troops sought contact and engaged the terrorists … in cooperation with a tank force, which isolated the area, along with air support. During the battle, nine terrorists were eliminated.” An IDF soldier was seriously wounded in the fighting.
The attack provided a stark reminder of the persistent and sophisticated guerrilla threat the military continues to face from Hamas.
Joe Truzman, a senior research analyst and editor at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ Long War Journal, said, “This latest Hamas attack reflects a degree of organizational capacity, demonstrating that the terrorist organization continues to have some offensive capabilities. The concerning implication is that, so long as Hamas retains some operational freedom, it will continue to strive for a strategic win on the battlefield.”
IDF Spokesperson’s briefing
During a press briefing on Wednesday evening, IDF Spokesperson Brig. Gen. Effie Defrin stated, “Even now, IDF troops continue combat throughout the Gaza Strip and on the outskirts of Gaza City as part of ‘Operation Gideon’s Chariots.’ Earlier today, Kfir Brigade troops thwarted a terrorist attack on a brigade post in southern Khan Yunis. The troops identified more than 15 terrorists who emerged from a tunnel shaft, and opened fire, including RPG fire, at the troops.”
He continued, “In the battle that developed around the post, our troops repelled the terrorists. The troops sought contact and engaged the terrorists. The troops conducted the battle in cooperation with a tank force, which isolated the area, along with air support.”
Defrin said that, following authorization from Israel’s political leadership and the approval of operational plans by the IDF chief of staff, the military has entered the second phase of “Operation Gideon’s Chariots.” He noted that the buildup of forces in Gaza City was made possible by the successes already achieved in the campaign’s earlier stage.
He said, “Hamas today is not the same Hamas that existed before the operation. From a military terrorist organization, it has become a battered and bruised guerrilla organization. We will deepen the damage to Hamas in Gaza City, a stronghold of governmental and military terror for the terrorist organization. We will deepen the damage to the terror infrastructure above and below the ground and sever the population’s dependence on Hamas. We are not waiting. We have begun the preliminary actions and already now, IDF troops are holding the outskirts of Gaza City.”
According to Defrin, the IDF’s Nahal infantry brigade and the 7th Armored Brigade, operating under the command of the 99th Division, are located in the Zeitoun area on the outskirts of Gaza City, and troops have already located a tunnel with weapons within Gaza City.
“Another effort by the Givati Brigade, under the command of the 162nd Division, is operating in the area of Jabalia [in northern Gaza]. Additional troops will join the operation in the near future,” Defrin said.
Yaakov Lappin
Source: is an Israel-based military affairs correspondent and analyst. He is the in-house analyst at the Miryam Institute; a research associate at the Alma Research and Education Center; and a research associate at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Bar-Ilan University. He is a frequent guest commentator on international television news networks, including Sky News and i24 News. Lappin is the author of Virtual Caliphate: Exposing the Islamist State on the Internet. Follow him at: www.patreon.com/yaakovlappin.
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