The Israeli security firm has approved a plan by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the military occupation of the city of Gaza, located in the north of the Palestinian enclave.
“The (Israeli soldiers) will prepare to take control of Gaza City while providing humanitarian aid to the civilian population outside of combat areas,” Netanyahu’s office said in a statement early Friday, announcing the control plan.
Two Israeli government sources have told the Reuters news agency that any resolution of the security firm should now be approved by the full government office, which can only meet on Sunday.
The occupation of Gaza City marks a major escalation of Israel in its war against Palestinian territory and will probably lead to the forced displacement of tens of thousands of exhausted and hungry residents who are experiencing famine while Israel continues to block humanitarian aid to enter the territory.
The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Keir Starmer, said that Israel’s plan to worsen the assault on Gaza was “false”.
“This action will do nothing to put an end to this conflict or to help guarantee the release of the hostages. It will no longer bring blood effutes,” he said in a statement.
Axios News journalist Barak Ravid, who first reported the approval by the plan security firm, cited an anonymous Israeli official saying that the operation will imply the forced displacement of “all Palestinian civilians from Gaza City to Central Camps and other areas by October 7”.
“A seat will be imposed on Hamas activists who remain in Gaza City, and at the same time, an offensive on the ground will be made in Gaza City,” wrote Ravid on X, quoting the official.
On Thursday, before the meeting of the security firm Netanyahu said that Israel “would take control of all the Gaza”.
In a television interview with US Outlet Fox News, Netanyahu also said that Israel did not want to be “a director body” in Gaza and put the responsibility of an unrecognized third party.
“We don’t want to keep it. We want to have a security perimeter. We don’t want to govern it,” he said.
Netanyahu’s comments followed reports in the Israeli media earlier this week that the Israeli leader would imminently announce the plans to fully occupy the entire Gaza Strip.
Hamas said Netanyahu’s comments “represent a blatant reversal of the negotiation process and clearly expose the real reasons behind its withdrawal from the last cease-fire, despite our approach to a final agreement”.
“His plans to expand the assault undoubtedly confirm that he is trying to abandon his own prisoners, sacrificing them to serve his personal interests and his extremist ideological program,” the group said in a statement.
The head of the Israeli opposition, Yair, Lapid, said that the decision to take control of Gaza City was a “disaster that will lead to many other disasters”.
The plan “will take months, will lead to the death of the hostages, the murder of many soldiers, cost the tens of billions to Israeli taxpayers and leads to a political collapse”, he wrote in an article on X.
“This is exactly what Hamas wanted: for Israel to be trapped in the field without objective, without defining the image of the next day, in an unnecessary occupation that no one understands where it leads.”
Shihab Rattansi, Tel Aviv Tribune correspondent in Washington, DC, said that Israel’s decision in Occupy Gaza has been “telegraphied for several days now”.
“Donald Trump has everything except Green enlightened like Benjamin Netanyahu wants to do. He said it would be to the Israelis,” Ratansi said.
It is not known how many people still live in Gaza City, the largest population center in the enclave before the War of Israel against the territory which has now killed more than 61,000 Palestinians since October 2023.
Hundreds of thousands of people fled the city of Gaza under forced evacuation orders issued by the Israeli army in the first weeks of the war, but many returned during a brief ceasefire at the start of this year.
A large floor operation in Gaza City could move several thousand and further disrupt efforts to deliver food to the territory struck by famine, where nearly 200 people are now dead in famine and malnutrition.
“There is nothing left to occupy,” said Maysaa al-Heila, a resident of Gaza, learning of the city’s planned control.
“There is no more Gaza,” Al-Heila told the Associated Press news agency.
