Netanyahu says Israel intends to take over Gaza as security cabinet meets to discuss move
Reports of military chief pushing back on expanding campaign
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday that Israel intends to take military control of all of Gaza, despite intensifying criticism at home and abroad over the devastating almost two-year-old war in the Palestinian enclave.
"We intend to," Netanyahu said in an interview with Fox News when asked if Israel would take over the entire coastal territory. "We don't want to keep it. We want to have a security perimeter. We don't want to govern it. We don't want to be there as a governing body."
He said that Israel wanted to hand over the territory to Arab forces that would govern it.
Netanyahu made his comments to Fox News before the outcome of a meeting he was due to have on Thursday with a small group of senior ministers to discuss plans for the military to take control of more territory in Gaza.
The security cabinet session follows a meeting this week with the head of the military, which Israeli officials have described as tense, saying the military chief had pushed back on expanding the campaign.
In response to Netanyahu, Hamas said the remarks constituted "a coup" amid the Gaza ceasefire negotiations.
The militant group said in a statement Thursday that Netanyahu's plans to expand Israel's Gaza offensive show his aim is to sacrifice Israel's own hostages to serve his personal interests.
Arab countries would "only support what Palestinians agree and decide on," a Jordanian official source told Reuters, adding that security in Gaza should be done through "legitimate Palestinian institutions."
Earlier this year Israel and the United States rejected an Egyptian proposal, backed by Arab leaders, that envisaged the creation of an administrative committee of independent, professional Palestinian technocrats entrusted with the governance of Gaza after the war ends.
Total control of the territory would reverse a 2005 decision by Israel, by which it withdrew Israeli citizens and soldiers from Gaza while retaining control over its borders, airspace and utilities. Right-wing parties blame that withdrawal decision for the militant Palestinian group Hamas gaining power there in a 2006 election.
Opinion polls show that most Israelis want the war to end in a deal that would see the release of the remaining hostages. Netanyahu's government has insisted on total victory over the Palestinian militant group Hamas, which ignited the war with its deadly attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. U.S. President Donald Trump declined on Tuesday to say whether he supported or opposed a potential full military takeover of Gaza by Israel.
The United Nations has called reports about a possible expansion of Israel's military operations in Gaza "deeply alarming" if true.
The idea of Israeli forces pushing into areas they do not already control in the shattered Palestinian enclave has generated alarm in Israel. The mother of one hostage on Thursday urged people to take to the streets to voice their opposition to expanding the campaign.
"Someone who talks about a comprehensive deal doesn't go and conquer the Strip and put hostages and soldiers in danger," Einav Zangauker wrote on social media platform X in comments directed at Netanyahu.
The Hostages Families Forum, which represents captives held in Gaza, urged military Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir to oppose expanding the war and called on the government to accept a deal that would bring the war to an end and free the remaining hostages.
Military to carry out orders until all war objectives met
Defence Minister Israel Katz said on Wednesday that the military would carry out the government's decisions until all war objectives were achieved. Israeli leaders have long insisted that Hamas be disarmed and have no future role in a demilitarized Gaza and that the hostages be freed.
There are 50 hostages still being held in Gaza, of whom Israeli officials believe 20 are alive. Most of those freed so far came about as a result of diplomatic negotiations. Talks toward a ceasefire that could have seen some hostages released collapsed in July.
A senior Palestinian official said Hamas had told Arab mediators that an increase in humanitarian aid entering Gaza would lead to a resumption in ceasefire negotiations.
Israeli officials accuse Hamas of seizing aid to hand out to its fighters and to sell in Gaza markets to finance its operations, accusations that the militant group denies. Last month, U.S. analysis found no evidence of widespread Hamas theft of Gaza aid, challenging the main rationale that Israel and the United States give for backing a new armed private aid operation.
Videos released last week of two living hostages showed them emaciated and frail, triggering international condemnation.
Hamas, which has ruled Gaza for nearly two decades but now controls only parts of the enclave, insists any deal must lead to a permanent end to the war. Israel says the group has no intention of going through with promises to give up power afterwards.
'I will die in front of this tent camp,' Palestinian says
The Israeli military says it controls about 75 per cent of Gaza. Most of Gaza's population of about two million has been displaced multiple times over the past 22 months, and aid groups are warning that the enclave's residents are on the verge of famine.
"Netanyahu's government is already carrying out a genocide against Palestinians in Gaza," 59-year-old Rafiq Al-Masry told CBC News freelance videographer Mohamed El Saife on Thursday in Gaza City.
"Expanding the military operation will only increase the number of martyrs ... and the destruction of houses and shelters."
"What's left for [Israel] to do?" Najla Abu Jarad, 60, told CBC News.
"My plan is to never leave. I will die in front of this tent camp. Death is more honourable than for them to forcibly displace us from one place to the next."
Close to 200 Palestinians have died of starvation in Gaza since the war began, nearly half of whom were children, according to Gaza's Health Ministry. The director general of the World Health Organization said on Thursday that Gaza has seen its highest monthly figure of acute malnutrition in children.
In July, nearly 12,000 children under five were identified as having acute malnutrition in Gaza — the highest monthly figure ever recorded, according to WHO director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
Netanyahu is under intense international pressure to reach a ceasefire agreement, but he also faces internal pressure from within his coalition to continue the war. Some far-right allies in his government have pushed for a full occupation of Gaza and for Israel to re-establish settlements there, two decades after it withdrew.
Far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich told reporters on Wednesday that he hoped the government would approve the military taking control over the rest of Gaza.
About 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken hostage in the October 2023 Hamas-led attack on southern Israeli communities.
Since then, more than 61,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israel's assault on Gaza, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which said 98 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire across the enclave in the past 24 hours.
With files from CBC's Mohamed El Saife