News of the Israeli government’s decision to take over Gaza City is being met not surprisingly with despair in Gaza. Gaza City, its capital, is on a countdown to oblivion.

Assuming that Hamas does not capitulate in the coming weeks – and there are currently few signs of this happening – then the Israeli military is set to embark on a devastating new phase of the war.

For Gaza City, where an estimated one million civilians still live, the prospects are bleak.

Hundreds of thousands are people who were forced to flee during the early months of the war but who returned in January when a ceasefire raised hopes of an end to the fighting.

They spent more than a year away from their homes, driven from one location to another, living in increasingly desperate conditions.

When they returned to the north, many found their homes destroyed and their neighbourhoods erased. But they settled down where they could, believing the war might finally be over.

But life in the city, hard enough already, deteriorated rapidly after Israel broke the ceasefire in mid-March and cut off aid supplies, triggering the worst humanitarian crisis of the conflict.

Now it seems a new cycle is about to unfold.

The Israeli government is once again going to attempt to force Gaza City’s entire population to move south, a process which reports suggest could be completed in two months.

Expect to see curfews, evacuation orders and convoys of exhausted civilians on the road once more.

Last time, evacuees were able to seek shelter in cities like Khan Younis and Rafah. But those cities have been almost entirely obliterated, raising serious questions about where fleeing civilians will live.

Israel says more aid will be available, but has given few details.

Meanwhile, the story of Gaza City may soon echo that of Rafah.

In May 2024, Israel cut off the southern city and ordered its civilian population – around one million people – to leave. Most fled northwest to the coastal area known as al-Mawasi.

The US president at the time, Joe Biden, said an invasion of Rafah would represent a “red line” for his administration.

But with the civilian population mostly gone, the Israeli military proceeded to destroy Rafah, arguing that the presence of Hamas fighters and infrastructure made it necessary to cleanse the city.

A year on, a once-bustling city barely exists.

Unless there’s a diplomatic breakthrough before early October, what remains of Gaza City may go the same way.

That will leave the fate of the Gaza Strip’s “middle camps” – Nuseirat, Bureij and Deir-el-Balah – hanging in the balance.

Israeli officials say there is no current plan to invade and occupy the camps, which, though they have been attacked multiple times, have yet to experience the worst of the war.

But if Hamas remains a presence there, especially if it still holds hostages, then there’s no reason to think the same story won’t unfold there too.

Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, believes he can, and must, achieve all this in pursuit of total victory over Hamas.

A civilian population of two million people can still be forced to move out of the way, ordered this way and that and more or less kept alive through the chaotic – and in the case of distribution points frequently lethal – provision of minimal amounts of aid, while the places they call home are systematically destroyed.

A majority of Israelis oppose it for what it means for the fate of the remaining 50 hostages, around 20 of whom are thought to be alive.

Much of the world is looking on in horror. Israel’s diplomatic isolation looks set to deepen.

Netanyahu’s conquest of Gaza could even test the patience of his loyal ally in the White House.

But after defeating Hezbollah in Lebanon, helping to bring about the fall of the Assad regime in Syria and delivering a devastating set of blows against its arch enemy Iran, Israel has confirmed its status as a regional superpower, capable of taking on and defeating multiple enemies.

After the brutal humiliation inflicted by Hamas in October 2023, Netanyahu now seems emboldened and ready to take risks.

Who, he may be wondering, is going to stop him?