Stage one of the peace plan occurred with the exchange of the 20 remaining live Israeli hostages being held by Hamas for nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners being held in Israel, including about 250 life prisoners and about 1,700 who had been captured since the war started on October 7, 2023, with Hamas's terrorist attack on Israel. The attack resulted in approximately 1,200 deaths, mostly civilians, and 251 people taken hostage. The other part of stage one was the ceasefire, which has been fragile at best.

The next stage of the peace plan has proven problematic, as Hamas has so far refused to give up its weapons and control over Gaza.

Turkey is reportedly planning to send thousands of soldiers to Gaza as part of the ISF, though both the U.S. and Israel are resisting that effort. Based on the Trump administration's proposed resolution sent to the United Nations Security Council, the ISF would oversee the Gaza ceasefire, the disarming of Hamas, and the humanitarian relief effort.

But Israel has been clear that no Turkish troops would be allowed to enter Gaza. "There will be no Turkish boots on the ground," a spokesperson for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said during a press conference, according to Algemeiner.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has repeatedly praised Hamas. Just this week, the Turkish government issued arrest warrants for 37 Israeli officials, including Netanyahu, accusing them of "genocide" in Gaza.

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz blasted the accusations, calling them "ridiculous."

"Take those ridiculous arrest warrants and get the hell out of here," he said in a post on X. "They're more fitting for the massacres you've committed against the Kurds. Israel is strong and unafraid. You'll only be able to see Gaza through binoculars."

As part of an officially declared plan to ethnically cleanse Gaza City of its one million residents, the Israeli military has been heavily bombing vital lifelines since mid-August.

This has included high-rise buildings, schools sheltering thousands of displaced Palestinians, water tanks, rooftop solar panels, internet access points, and mobile charging stations.

“I had decided to stay and not leave, whatever happened,” said Emad Sarsawi, 43.

“For months, I used to say that I was willing to die with my wife and children in our home rather than be displaced again to the south. But what is happening is more dangerous than just death,” he told Middle East Eye.

“Yesterday, the Israeli occupation bombed our neighbours’ building, which had solar panels on the roof. These panels were a lifeline for many residents in the neighbourhood. We relied on them to pump water and recharge our devices.”

Sarsawi explained that following the bombing of the solar panels, multiple families had no choice but to head south.

“If we were bombed, we would all be killed at once. But like this, we can’t even find drinkable, or even undrinkable, water, and we’ll die slowly of thirst,” he added.

“We also won’t be able to recharge our devices, which means total blackout. We won’t even know what’s going on around us.”

Since the beginning of its genocide in Gaza in October 2023, Israel has cut off water and electricity, bombed internet infrastructure, and blocked fuel from entering the besieged enclave.

As a result, the Strip has been pushed into a state of famine, with its 2.2 million residents enduring complete blackouts on several occasions over the past 23 months.

Last month, Israel approved a plan to occupy the Gaza Strip, starting with the seizure of Gaza City.

Since then, Israeli forces have destroyed hundreds of housing units and killed more than 1,800 people.

Overall, Israeli forces have killed more than 64,800 Palestinians and wounded 164,000 since the war began. Over 80 percent of those killed are civilians, according to leaked Israeli military data.

After a month of heavy bombardment, a ground invasion of Gaza City is now the next move, according to Israeli media.

The challenge remains the hundreds of thousands of civilians who refuse to leave, citing the lack of safety anywhere else in the Gaza Strip.

Phone charging points targeted
In the absence of household electricity, a makeshift profession has emerged in Gaza’s streets: device charging points.

These are usually owned and managed by individuals or families with solar panels that generate enough electricity to recharge dozens of devices.

At these points, residents typically recharge their mobiles, tablets and laptops for 1–5 Israeli shekels ($0.33–$1.66).

But in recent days, Israeli forces have increasingly targeted these points across Gaza City.

Ahmed Ubeid, a displaced man sheltering in a school on al-Thawra Street in central Gaza City, said he once relied on one such point.

“A few days ago, a building was bombed in our neighbourhood and we thought it was the target, but they only hit the ground floor, where a neighbour's charging point was," said Ubeid, 26.

“The next morning, another neighbour who owned a similar point shut it down, fearing he too would be targeted for providing this service.”

Ubeid now has to walk long distances to recharge his and his family’s phones.

“I believe this is a reason why many, especially displaced people already living in tents, choose to relocate to places with better access to such services,” he said.

"But because relocation is so costly and difficult, they decide to do it once, moving southward, instead of staying in Gaza City, where they know they will be forced out again.”

Bombing schools-turned-shelters
Ubeid is even more concerned about the Israeli military’s accelerating strategy of forcing hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians out of schools by bombing them.

Over the past week, Israeli forces issued expulsion orders to multiple schools-turned-shelters, mainly in the Tal al-Hawa neighbourhood in southwest Gaza City, to clear the area.

“I have stayed in this school with my family since we were displaced from our neighbourhood in Shujaiya at the beginning of the war. We witnessed the ground invasion here and endured the first and second starvation,” Ubeid said.

“It has been over a year and a half, and this has become our home. We have nowhere else to go if they issue an evacuation order here. All schools in the central and southern Gaza Strip are already overcrowded. There is no place to set up a tent, even in the streets.”

By forcing these schools to close, the Israeli military is not only displacing people again but also cutting off vital resources for surrounding residential buildings.

For nearly two years, these schools have supplied residents with power to pump water into their buildings, while most relied on them for drinking and washing water otherwise unavailable in their homes.

“It is clear that they are cutting us off from main resources so that those who don’t comply with displacement orders will die of thirst, or bleed to death after being injured because they cannot power their phones to call for help,” Ubeid said.

“They are shutting down every service that keeps a human alive to empty entire neighbourhoods en masse.

“Those who insist on staying suddenly find themselves alone and doubting their decision.”

Philippe Lazzarini, head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, has accused Israel of engineering the “most cruel and Machiavellian scheme to kill” in Gaza, which has become “the graveyard of children and starving people”.
As the Israeli attacks intensify, signs of hunger become visible everywhere across the forcibly starved territory, according to our team on the ground.

Several people, including children, have been killed in an Israeli bombardment of the Halimah al-Saadiyah School in Jabalia an-Nazla, in northern Gaza.
Israel’s war on Gaza has killed at least 57,762 people and wounded 137,656, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. An estimated 1,139 people were killed in Israel during the October 7, 2023, attacks, and more than 200 were taken captive.

Israeli forces kill 31 today
At least 31 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks since morning, hospital sources have told Al Jazeera.

Among those killed, 10 were aid seekers, the sources added.

\"We have a territory that we are in, and the commands are: everyone that comes inside needs to die,\" he said. \"If they\'re inside, they\'re dangerous you need to kill them. No matter who it is,\" he said.

The detainees included people from Algeria, Australia, France, Morocco, the Netherlands, Spain and the United States, he said.

Adam al-Najjar arrived with his mother at Milan’s Linate airport on Wednesday, where he was greeted by Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani, who gave him a football. He was then transferred to the city’s Niguarda Hospital for treatment of his injuries.

The attack on the Fahmi al-Jarjawi School in the Daraj neighbourhood of Gaza City also wounded dozens of people, said Fahmy Awad, head of the Gaza Ministry of Health’s emergency service. He said a father and his five children were among the dead.
International humanitarian law forbids attacks on civilian infrastructure, including schools, but throughout its 19-month war in Gaza, Israel has repeatedly bombed schools, most of which are now being used as shelters for displaced people.

At least 50 people were killed by bombs and artillery attacks in November 2023 at al-Buraq School in Gaza City. At the nearby al-Tabin School, more than 100 people were killed as they gathered for morning prayers in August

Elsewhere on Monday, an attack on a home in Jabalia in northern Gaza killed 16 members of the same family, including five women and two children, according to al-Shifa Hospital, which received the bodies.