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The Israeli government has approved plans to escalate its offensive in Gaza, including the possible full reoccupation of the shattered Palestinian enclave.
Monday’s unanimous decision by the security cabinet of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu follows nearly 19 months of war that have so far failed to either fully defeat Hamas or secure the group’s release of all the remaining Israeli hostages.
Netanyahu said the military had put forward a “good plan” that would finally achieve both Israeli war aims.
An Israeli official said the new operation would see intensifying attacks across all of Gaza, with Israeli forces holding territory deep inside the strip. It would include the potential reconquest of the entire enclave, the forced evacuation of the Palestinian population southward once again, and the denial of Hamas control over humanitarian aid supplies.
The Israeli cabinet also officially approved the implementation of a contentious new system of humanitarian aid delivery into Gaza — “if necessary,” according to the Israeli official.
The proposal would see US private security contractors move aid into so-called humanitarian zones in south Gaza, from which vetted Palestinians would retrieve parcels to carry back to their families. The scheme has been roundly rejected by international aid groups as unworkable and insufficient.
Israel resumed its offensive in Gaza in March after breaking a two-month ceasefire, with its troops again seizing swaths of the south and north of the territory.
Israel has since then also cut off supplies of food, fuel, medicine and aid to Gaza’s 2.1mn population, exacerbating hunger and malnourishment in the territory, and driving prices for fruit and vegetables to extremely high levels in the few places where they can still be obtained.
However, far-right ministers on whom Netanyahu’s ruling coalition depends for its parliamentary majority had been demanding a far bigger operation in Gaza, including a full reoccupation of the territory, despite Hamas still holding 59 Israeli hostages — fewer than half of whom are still thought to be alive.
The Israeli military over the weekend began calling up thousands of reservists, although analysts said they did not expect the expanded offensive to begin until after US President Donald Trump’s trip next week to Gulf states.
Relatives of Israelis still held captive in Gaza issued a statement warning that “any escalation in the fighting will put the hostages — both the living and the deceased — in immediate danger”, as well as risking the lives of additional Israeli soldiers.
“The vast majority of the Israeli public views the return of the hostages as the nation’s highest moral priority,” the relatives added.
After breaking the truce in March, the Israeli government had previously indicated the goal of the new operation was to pressure Hamas to release additional hostages. Yet talks over another deal have stalled amid Netanyahu’s refusal to fully commit to ending the war, as Hamas has demanded.
Netanyahu said last week that while bringing home the hostages was a “very important goal” in the war, the “ultimate goal is the victory over our enemies”.
Israel’s offensive in Gaza has killed more than 52,500 people, according to Palestinian officials, and reduced much of the territory to rubble. During Hamas’s October 7 2023 attack, which triggered the conflict, militants killed 1,200 people and took some 250 hostage, according to Israeli officials.
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