Israel to push to reoccupy all of Gaza in ‘updated' war plan
Addressing a cabinet meeting with the war well into its 22nd month, the Israeli leader told ministers on Monday that later in the week he would instruct the military on how 'to achieve the three war objectives we have set'.
Israeli broadcaster Channel 12 and the Jerusalem Post newspaper quoted officials in Mr Netanyahu's office saying that the 'updated strategy' would be to reoccupy all of Gaza, including areas in Gaza City where the military believes hostages are being held.
The cabinet would meet on Tuesday to endorse the plan, the reports said.
There was no immediate official confirmation, but the Palestinian Authority's foreign ministry denounced what it called a 'leaked' plan and urged the international community to intervene to quash any new military occupation.
Mr Netanyahu is facing mounting domestic and international pressure to bring the remaining hostages in Gaza home and allow much more aid into the starving territory.
Israel – backed by the United States and Panama – is preparing to convene a UN Security Council meeting on Tuesday to highlight the fate of the hostages.
Mr Netanyahu on Monday reiterated that Israel's three war goals remained 'the defeat of the enemy, the release of our hostages and the promise that Gaza will no longer pose a threat to Israel'.
His statement came after hundreds of retired Israeli security chiefs wrote to US President Donald Trump to urge him to convince Mr Netanyahu to end the war.
'Immediate mortal danger'
Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said ahead of the UN meeting that 'the world must put an end to the phenomenon of kidnapping civilians. It must be front and centre on the world stage'.
Of the 251 hostages seized during Hamas's October 2023 attack on Israel, 49 are still being held in Gaza, including 27 the Israeli military says are dead.
The UN session was called after Palestinian militant groups last week published three videos showing hostages Rom Braslavski and Evyatar David appearing weak and emaciated, causing shock and distress in Israel.
Mr Netanyahu said he had asked the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to provide food and medical treatment to the Israeli captives.
Hamas's armed wing said it was willing to allow access to the hostages in exchange for opening aid corridors into all of Gaza, where UN-mandated experts have warned famine is unfolding.
Mr Netanyahu's government has faced repeated accusations by relatives of hostages and other critics that it has not done enough to rescue the captives.
'Netanyahu is leading Israel and the hostages to ruin,' said the Hostages and Missing Families Forum campaign group.
'For 22 months, the public has been sold the illusion that military pressure and intense fighting will bring the hostages back.
'The truth must be said: expanding the war endangers the lives of the hostages, who are already in immediate mortal danger.'
'Only through a deal'
Mediation efforts led by Qatar, Egypt and the United States have failed to secure a truce.
Hundreds of retired Israeli security officials including former heads of intelligence agencies have urged US President Donald Trump to pressure their own government to end the war.
'It is our professional Judgement that Hamas no longer poses a strategic threat to Israel,' the former officials wrote in an open letter shared with the media on Monday.
The war 'is leading the State of Israel to lose its security and identity', said Ami Ayalon, former director of the Shin Bet security service, in a video released to accompany the letter.
The letter argued that the Israeli military 'has long accomplished the two objectives that could be achieved by force: dismantling Hamas's military formations and governance'.
'The third, and most important, can only be achieved through a deal: bringing all the hostages home,' it added.
'We are starving'
The October 2023 Hamas attack that sparked the war resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, mostly civilians, according to a tally of official figures.
Israel's campaign in Gaza has killed at least 60,933 people, also mostly civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory's health ministry, which are deemed reliable by the UN.
Gaza's civil defence agency said Israeli fire on Monday killed at least 19 Palestinians, including nine who were waiting to collect food aid from a site in central Gaza.
In Gaza City, Umm Osama Imad was mourning a relative she said was killed while trying to reach an aid distribution point.
'We are starving … He went to bring flour for his family,' she said.
'The flour is stained with blood. We don't want the flour anymore. Enough!' UN rights chief Volker Turk on Monday said 'the images of people starving in Gaza are heart-rending and intolerable. That we have reached this stage is an affront to our collective humanity.'
He called on Israel to urgently allow aid into the territory, adding that denying it 'may amount to a war crime'.
He also described the videos of hostages as 'shocking', calling for the ICRC to be allowed immediate access to them.
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As more than 100,000 people marched across the Sydney Harbour Bridge against the Gaza war, a protester climbed above the crowd, his face wrapped, waving a black flag made infamous by Al Qaeda and Islamic State (IS). The image was posted online by Wisam Haddad, a radical Sydney cleric who thrives on baiting the media. "The only flag that counts!" said the post by Mr Haddad, recently identified by the ABC's Four Corners as a spiritual leader of Australia's pro-IS network. Israeli politicians and pro-Israel voices seized on the small presence of the flags at the peaceful August 3 protest, portraying the Palestinian statehood campaign as a Trojan horse for extremism. Mr Haddad's agenda is starker still. The preacher — who also goes by Abu Ousayd, William Haddad and Wissam Haddad — has no interest in a Palestinian state. 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Uweinat belonged to an IS cell which was infiltrated by a spy for Australia's intelligence agency ASIO, who recently told Four Corners how members plotted attacks and liaised with jihadist leaders abroad. Uweinat's messages to teenagers, buried in court files, now lay bare Mr Haddad's close ties to the terrorist cell. Video from this month's protest shows Uweinat alongside the hate preacher and later forcefully confronting another demonstrator. The reunion of Uweinat and Mr Haddad underscores a longstanding challenge for Australian authorities. They have monitored Mr Haddad for more than two decades without laying a single terrorism charge, while he hosted a stream of terrorists recruiting young people from his prayer centres and entrenched himself in the global jihad. He is now collaborating with notorious terrorists in Australia and abroad to re-energise his national network, while inspiring a new generation of teenage followers accused of attack plots and hate crimes. 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To the investigators who arrested Uweinat in 2019, his flag stunt on the Harbour Bridge might have seemed inevitable. That year, they found him circulating doctored images of the IS flag atop other Australian landmarks: Canberra's Parliament House, Sydney Town Hall and even Sydney's Anzac Bridge. At just 21, the apprentice plumber was recruiting boys as "soldiers of the Australian Wilayah (province)", the NSW Supreme Court heard. He drew them into encrypted chat groups, flooded them with gruesome propaganda, urged them to die as martyrs, and coached them to radicalise other minors. According to court documents, some of the propaganda videos showed beheadings and young children training with assault rifles. He also filmed his own: a young child in a school uniform and balaclava reciting praise for IS. Two years later, in 2021, Uweinat convinced a judge he had renounced IS. "Upon my release from custody, I wish to help young Australians turn away from extreme ideology," he read in a contrition letter to the court. Justice Geoffrey Bellew cut his sentence from the maximum 10 years to less than four, citing his "genuine" contrition, renunciation of terrorism, immaturity and an early guilty plea. He cautioned that Uweinat might return to terrorism if reunited with his former network, a risk he expected would likely be managed by strict supervision. That supervision never materialised. Before Uweinat's release in 2023, another judge rejected the federal government's case that he remained an unacceptable terrorism risk, in a decision delivered in closed court. The government failed in its bid for a supervision order, which would have involved sweeping controls over Uweinat's movements, associations, communications and online activity. Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke said the government wanted "Australians to feel safe and to be safe". 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In another video, posted to X, Uweinat ambushes a protester and wrests away a red Ya Hussein flag. The flag is sacred to the Shiite community, a sect that IS doctrine says should be exterminated, and which has previously been targeted by members of Mr Haddad's circle in Sydney. In the clip, an associate points to the black Shahada flag and tells the protester, "that's the true flag here … brother, you're committing kufr (blasphemy)", before Uweinat moves in and the audio cuts out. Mr Haddad later defended the confrontation online as an act of faith, without naming Uweinat, dismissing criticism that it undermined the pro-Palestinian movement and endangered Shias. Uweinat declined to answer the ABC's questions about the incident, but said his display of the Shahada flag was "not in support of Islamic State". Other footage shows Mr Haddad's followers marching alongside other radical activists waving the Shahada flags and calling for a global caliphate ruled under a hardline vision of Sharia law. That mission leaves no space for a Palestinian state. Mr Haddad dismisses nationalism as heresy, exploiting dismay over Gaza to sow division in the Muslim community and spread his fringe brand of Islam. "The only solution for Palestine is an Islamic one," he said in a lecture last Friday. "No nationalism, tribalism, no borders, no man-made system." He urged his followers to shun Muslim rulers, leaders and prominent sheikhs, describing them as "evil" and blaming them for failing to end the war in Gaza. The message was echoed in a lecture at his Bankstown centre by Abu Ahmad, a preacher who has opened a sister centre in Melbourne with Mr Haddad's backing. The message was echoed in a lecture weeks earlier at his Bankstown centre by Abu Ahmad, a preacher who has opened a sister centre in Melbourne with Mr Haddad's backing. "The Palestinian flag is under my foot," he declared last month. "The only flag that we hold is … the flag of the messenger of Allah (the Shahada flag)." The ABC sent Mr Haddad a list of questions, including whether he was trying to fracture the pro-Palestinian movement, radicalise young people and feed the revival of IS. He sent his own questions in response, including whether the reporter was a "Zionist" and "a leader of a pro genocide movement". He has previously denied being a leader of a pro-IS network. Uweinat's own path shows how Mr Haddad's network preys on the vulnerable, then grooms them to recruit others. The Supreme Court heard he was addicted to cannabis and cocaine from his teens, and by 20 was adrift when he crossed paths in south-west Sydney with a group of street preachers he had met years earlier. Social media posts from the time show him with Street Dawah Bankstown, an offshoot of an international preaching movement that courts have identified as a recruitment arm for terrorist groups in Australia, the UK and Europe. A psychological report said Uweinat was drawn into a circle of extremists through radical lectures and mosque visits, in a "process of brainwashing" that convinced him violent extremism was justified and must be spread. Within months in 2019, he had pledged allegiance to IS and taken the nom de guerre, Abu Musa al-Maqdisi ("Father of Musa, from Jerusalem") — a name that tied him to the jihadist struggle against Israel. By year's end, he was in prison. The ABC understands Mr Haddad installed Uweinat as a youth leader at Al Madina Dawah Centre, promoting events online and helping IS loyalists expand their "brotherhood". "Call out to all the Shabab [young Muslims]!" Uweinat wrote in a since-removed 2019 Facebook post, obtained by the ABC. "Come meet and Join the brothers for some Free Halal [religiously permissible] fun while increasing the brotherhood!" Privately, he created IS chat groups, where he coached teenagers to recruit others online through dawah, or proselytising, the court heard. "Im gonna convert this one kid im tellin ya, so much potential," one teenager wrote to Uweinat on the Telegram platform. "make a snapchat group for dawah," Uweinat replied, "we can give dawah to people that have potential … but only send things about IS." But Uweinat's messages were inconsistent. He posted calls for the slaughter of nonbelievers, while privately telling a teenager not to kill them, insisting "there's no jihad in Australia". The former ASIO agent who spoke to Four Corners, codenamed Marcus, won the trust of Uweinat and fellow IS supporters while posing as a radical imam inside Mr Haddad's network and prayer centre. "They became extremists after they attended Al Madina Dawah Centre and been exposed to the speech and the lessons," he said. "They were very, very keen to support him and support his mosque as much as they can." Recruited from the Middle East, Marcus ran a covert study circle in his home for Uweinat and a cell of IS supporters. The group spread propaganda online, filming their own jihadist content for Instagram accounts called The Forgotten Scrolls and Tawheed Vision. Behind the scenes, some members were in contact with senior terrorists abroad and discussing potential attacks in Australia. Marcus fed the intelligence to ASIO. In mid-2019, police moved in, arresting four young men. By November, Uweinat was panicking that he could be next. "you don't know how much shit were in cuz," he wrote to a teenage boy on Telegram. Despite his fears police were monitoring him, Uweinat let slip that Mr Haddad, known as Abu Ousayd, was connected to the IS cell. "they know we are all linked….me, tfs [The Forgotten Scrolls], tawheedvision, abu ousayd, the boys they got locked up." "Cuz, they know," he added in a voice message. "They know everything about us." The messages added to a file of evidence dating back more than a decade, connecting Mr Haddad to a global web of terrorists — from leaders of jihadist groups to aspiring Australian attackers as young as 13. Uweinat's actions meanwhile increasingly alarmed authorities. Days after his message about Mr Haddad, he shared a Snapchat photo of himself raising a single finger, with the text: "About to go on Istishhadi [a suicide attack]". "To everyone who stayed behind; I urge you to continue to strive in your Jihad and do not stop until you place the flag of Tawheed [the Shahada flag] over the White House!" When police stormed into Uweinat's Sydney home to arrest him the next month, he smashed his phone on the floor, cutting his hand in an attempt to destroy the evidence. Police never charged Uweinat over any plans for an attack, but he was convicted of advocating for acts of terrorism and being a member of IS. Less than two weeks ago, on August 8, another former youth leader from Al Madina Dawah Centre walked free after being sentenced for terrorism in the NSW District Court. Joseph Saadieh, 28, a former construction worker and university student, was once part of the same IS cell, running jihadist Instagram accounts with Uweinat. The pair, who had both dropped out of high school, attended Al Madina Dawah Centre together and bonded over their interest in IS, according to a psychological report tendered in Saadieh's case. When police arrested Saadieh in 2021, they found instructions on his devices for improvised explosives and suicide belts. He was due to stand trial for IS membership, but the charge was dropped when he pleaded guilty to the lesser offence of providing support to the group by intentionally associating with Uweinat. Judge Mark Williams SC sentenced Saadieh to 12 months' jail, but released him immediately, noting that his time in custody and under strict bail conditions had already exceeded the maximum three-year penalty. While on bail, Saadieh had lived under virtual house arrest for more than four years, barred from phones and the internet, and attending a deradicalisation program. His stringent conditions also banned contact with Mr Haddad and other Al Madina Dawah Centre leaders, and visits to landmarks including the Sydney Harbour Bridge. The psychological report warned that Saadieh might return to terrorism "if he is re-exposed to similar social circles or networks", contacts he insisted he would only re-engage with if they abandoned IS. His offence was too minor for him to be eligible for a supervision order. For now, he is free to decide whether to return to the fold. In a statement, the Home Affairs Department said it had a "range of measures that can be considered to manage Australians who pose a terrorism risk", including voluntary disengagement programs. In total, six members of the Sydney cell have been convicted of crimes, including terrorism offences. The question is whether authorities can contain Mr Haddad's influence before another wave of terrorism takes hold.
