Benjamin Netanyahu's office says Israel will take control of Gaza City. What would that mean?

RNZ News

a day ago

By Middle East correspondent
Allyson Horn
Palestinians inspect the damage after an overnight strike on the Sheikh Radwan Health Centre run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) in the north of Gaza City on 6 August, 2025.
Photo:
AFP
Israel's security cabinet has approved a plan to take over Gaza City in what will be seen as a major escalation in the war.
Before the security cabinet meeting in Jerusalem, Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Fox News that his goal was to take full control of the Gaza Strip and "liberate" people from Hamas.
But while the security cabinet has, for now, only approved a takeover of Gaza City, it is still a major escalation in the war that targets the symbolic heart of Gaza and an area that has been largely untouched through the last 22 months of the war.
Here is what we know - and what a military takeover would mean.
According to an official statement released by Netanyahu's office shortly after the security cabinet meeting:
"The IDF will prepare for taking control of Gaza City while distributing humanitarian assistance to the civilian population outside the combat zones."
It also said the security cabinet had adopted five principles for ending the war, which boil down to:
No other official details have been released yet, including when Israel will begin its assault.
From a military standpoint, Israel is expected to soon move tanks and troops on the ground into Gaza City and will physically occupy the area to maintain a military presence there.
Gaza City is really considered the heart of Gaza, so a military takeover will be highly significant, both symbolically and logistically.
It's usually a vibrant city that's densely populated, with lots of shops, cafes and restaurants and almost half of the strip's hospitals, but it's been completely transformed by the war.
The population there has become even more condensed, with estimates of hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians now packed into the area.
There are questions about where those Palestinians would go as Israeli troops advance, given large swathes of areas of the north and south of Gaza City have been demolished by Israel, and are considered uninhabitable, according to aid groups.
Gaza City is made up of many small streets and alleyways, which means Israeli troops are likely to be engaged in guerrilla-style warfare fighting against Hamas gunmen there.
In other areas of Gaza, Israel has used air strikes to destroy large swathes of buildings and infrastructure and diminish Hamas's capabilities.
If this were to happen inside Gaza City, many Palestinians would see this as the destruction of the heart of Gaza.
One of the principles the security cabinet agreed on for ending the war was having an alternative civil government that is not Hamas - which governed Gaza - or the Palestinian Authority, which has some governance over the West Bank.
But it is unclear who exactly a new ruling authority would be and so far, there have been no concrete proposals.
If Israel itself rules Gaza before another party is selected, it would become responsible for providing food, water, medicine and shelter to Gaza's population, according to international law.
In his Fox News appearance before the security cabinet meeting, Netanyahu said Israel "won't keep" control of Gaza.
He also suggested that control of Gaza would pass to a coalition of "Arab forces", although there was no information on who that would be or what that would look like.
Shortly after that statement, a Jordanian official rejected the idea and said Arabs would "only support what Palestinians agree and decide on".
"Arabs will not be agreeing to Netanyahu's policies nor clean his mess," said the official, quoted by Reuters.
Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Fox News that his goal was to take full control of the Gaza Strip and "liberate" people from Hamas. File picture.
Photo:
GIL COHEN-MAGEN / AFP
International law states it is illegal for a military occupier to transfer its civilians into the occupied territory - meaning it would be widely seen as illegal for Israel to allow its citizens to build settlements and live inside Gaza.
But this practice is already well established in the Occupied West Bank, another Palestinian territory, where more than 500,000 settlers live in settlements and outposts, both of them considered illegal under international law.
Israel says its West Bank settlements are legal and cites security justifications for their presence there.
And human rights groups fear the expansion of Israel's occupation in Gaza will open the door for Israeli resettlement there.
It's been 20 years since Israelis last lived inside Gaza.
At the time, about 8000 settlers lived in 21 settlements among the Palestinian population of about 1.4 million.
The settlers were removed from the strip by the Israeli government in 2005 after political leaders decided to "disengage" from Gaza.
But multiple senior politicians in the current Israeli government have repeatedly called for the resettlement of Gaza, including the country's national security minister.
The appetite among the Israeli public for expanding this war is already very low.
Multiple polls across Israel have repeatedly shown the majority of Israelis want this war to end and a ceasefire and hostage release deal to be reached.
And contrary to the views of the government, the vast majority of hostage families believe pushing into the area currently not occupied by Israel will jeopardise the safety of the captives.
They cite an example from one year ago where six Israeli hostages were killed by Hamas as the IDF advanced through the southern Gaza city of Rafah.
Hostage families say they fear their loved ones will also be killed - either by Hamas or by the military - if the IDF moves into Gaza City and its surrounds.
They've urged the government to reach a hostage-release and ceasefire deal instead.
The IDF's chief of staff has reportedly also warned the expansion would entrap troops and further endanger hostages.
In Gaza, news of Netanyahu's proposal quickly spread through the bombed-out streets of the strip, even before the security cabinet meeting got underway.
"I live in a tent, dumped in the street, but the upcoming situation is going to be worse because of what they are capable of implementing," 35-year-old Jaber Abu Odeh told the ABC.
Adel Shomali, 40, said the prospect of being forced to move again "breaks you".
"It's enough the displacement from the beginning of the war until the last ceasefire, and we were displaced from Gaza City to the south and then back to Gaza City," he said.
"There is fear from this situation. God willing, it won't happen."
Other Gazans, including the major of Rafah, Ahmed Al Sufi, called on the world to end the war and "find a real solution for the Palestinian people".
"People are now trapped in a narrow coastal strip in western Gaza, western Khan Younis, and the western parts of the central region - specifically in the Al-Mawasi area, which lacks even the most basic necessities of life," he said.
"If the army enters these remaining areas, I honestly don't know where people can go. There will be nowhere left. The situation would become absolutely catastrophic."
-
ABC