What to Expect in the 2025 Battle of Gaza City
On August 20, Defense Minister Israel Katz formally approved the Israel Defense Forces’ (IDF) plan to capture Gaza City under the operational name Gideon’s Chariots B. The plan represents the most ambitious phase of Israel’s campaign against Hamas since the October 7 attacks. It is designed to seize and clear one of Hamas’s last strongholds in the strip, including areas the IDF has not entered even once because of concerns over the hostages, the presence of civilians, and the difficulty of the terrain. Whether the operation actually proceeds depends on the fluid political environment. Hamas, under severe military and political pressure, has signaled openness to a temporary ceasefire that would see some hostages released, but not all, while refusing to agree to the only path that would end the war: releasing all hostages, disarming, and relinquishing control of Gaza. Even the Arab League has formally called on Hamas to take these steps, but Hamas remains unwilling.
At present, four IDF divisions are actively deployed, although most are understrength as brigades have rotated back to prepare for the major attack. The Gaza Division operates along the southern border and Rafah, the 99th Division along the northern Gaza border, the 36th Division in Khan Yunis, and the 162nd Division around Beit Hanoun and Jabalia. If the Gaza City operation is launched, the IDF could commit up to five divisions, making it the largest and most complex offensive of the war.
The first step would be the evacuation of civilians. Between 800,000 and one million people remain in and around Gaza City, with many already moving southward. The IDF has begun issuing warnings to medical authorities and aid organizations in northern Gaza, telling them to prepare for a full transfer of patients and equipment to the south. Humanitarian corridors are planned to help civilians reach al-Mawasi in Southern Gaza, alongside new field hospitals and aid distribution centers. International support will be critical, with Israel coordinating with aid groups and signaling an increased flow of supplies and medical equipment into southern Gaza.
Once most civilians are evacuated, the IDF will seek to isolate Gaza City before moving in. The operation will test Israel’s ability to fight in the most challenging urban terrain it has ever faced. Gaza City is not simply a dense neighborhood. It is a sprawling metropolis of more than 700,000 people with the highest population density in Gaza. Streets are lined with tightly packed mid- and high-rise apartment blocks, some rising 10 to 15 stories. These areas create urban canyons that restrict visibility, funnel movement, and expose troops to fire from above. Between the larger roads, narrow alleyways wind through crowded residential quarters where vehicles cannot pass and soldiers will be forced to move on foot, often without line of sight to supporting units. Inside these neighborhoods, nearly every structure can be fortified, every doorway trapped, and every basement connected to Hamas’s tunnel grid.
This terrain amplifies the complexity of Hamas’s defenses. The group has had two decades to prepare, embedding command posts and weapons caches beneath mosques, hospitals, schools, and apartment complexes. In Gaza City’s dense core, neighborhoods such as Shuja’iyya and Zeitoun allow fighters to shift between underground and surface positions within minutes, using tunnels that stretch under main roads and even beneath multi-story buildings. On top of their preexisting stockpiles, Hamas is likely to repurpose the estimated 5 to 10 percent of IDF ordnance that failed to detonate during earlier bombing campaigns into improvised explosive devices. Roads, walls, stairwells, and even ceilings may be wired to explode.
Another critical element of the Gaza City battle will be the fate of the remaining hostages. During the initial phase of Operation Gideon’s Chariots, IDF units uncovered the bodies of hostages killed in captivity and extracted valuable intelligence from captured Hamas fighters. Similar outcomes may occur if the army pushes into Gaza City, which is believed to contain some of the last sites where hostages could be held underground. Commanders likely expect Hamas to attempt to move or conceal captives in the vast tunnel system or inside fortified civilian structures, both to shield its fighters and to retain bargaining leverage.
The advance into Gaza City may therefore bring both grim recoveries of bodies and breakthroughs in intelligence. Interrogations of prisoners, the seizure of documents and electronic devices, and the exploitation of tunnel networks could yield new information on where remaining hostages are hidden. For Israel, these possibilities are a central part of the operation’s justification, tied both to the defeat of Hamas and to the release of all hostages.
Still, this is not the same IDF that fought in northern Gaza in late 2023 or Rafah in 2024. The military has adapted in real time, learning lessons in combined-arms maneuver, coordination, urban clearing operations, and civilian harm mitigation. It will enter Gaza City with more experience, better integration of technology, and hardened formations. Yet the battle will still bring massive destruction. Close combat, house-to-house fighting, Hamas booby-trapped buildings, airstrikes, and artillery will scar the urban landscape.
Just as fierce will be the information war. Hamas and its allies are expected to flood global media with inflated or falsified casualty figures, accusations of indiscriminate Israeli conduct, and images stripped of battlefield context. At the same time, Hamas will continue to use civilians as shields, threatening residents who try to evacuate and in many cases physically preventing their movement, even firing on them to keep them in place. Israel, in turn, will emphasize that Hamas bears responsibility for most civilian deaths by embedding fighters and weapons inside neighborhoods, hospitals, and schools. The contest for legitimacy will unfold alongside the physical battle.
