GAZA CITY/ISTANBUL

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has permitted limited humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip in what an Israeli newspaper described on Monday as an attempt to pave the way for a new military offensive.

The daily Yedioth Ahronoth said the ongoing ground offensive, launched in mid-May, had failed to meet its key objectives – freeing Israeli captives and dismantling Hamas.

Almost three months later, and with tens of thousands of reservists called up for the sixth time, the paper said the operation is now effectively over.

Netanyahu’s government, it added, hopes that allowing some aid into Gaza will provide international cover for a renewed assault, particularly on Gaza City and the coastal al-Mawasi area.

According to the newspaper, sharp disagreements have surfaced between Israel’s political and military leadership over how to officially close the chapter on the current assault. The army, it said, opposes easing aid restrictions at a time when some forces, including the 98th Division, have already been pulled out of the enclave.

The report comes amid mounting criticism at home. More than half of Israelis now hold Netanyahu’s government fully or partly responsible for failing to strike a ceasefire and prisoner swap deal with Hamas, according to a recent poll by Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies.

Meanwhile, Gaza’s Government Media Office said Monday that Israel had allowed in just 674 aid trucks since July 27 – only 14% of the strip’s minimum daily requirement of 600 trucks.

It said most of the 80 trucks that entered on Sunday were looted amid what it called “a deliberately engineered climate of chaos and starvation,” accusing Israel of weaponizing hunger to undermine Palestinian resilience.

The office urged international and humanitarian organizations to demand the permanent reopening of Gaza’s crossings to ensure the safe and sufficient flow of food, medicine, and infant formula.

Rejecting international calls for a ceasefire, the Israeli army has pursued a brutal offensive on Gaza since Oct. 7, 2023, killing nearly 61,000 Palestinians, almost half of them women and children. The military campaign has devastated the enclave and brought it to the verge of famine.

Last November, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.

Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its war on the enclave.