Netanyahu's plans for expanded Gaza offensive spark anger and dismay at home and abroad
An association of Israel air force reserve and retired pilots have issued a statement calling for an 'immediate end to the futile war and urgent action to bring the hostages home.'
'The war being waged in Gaza is exacting an unbearable toll from hostages who have languished in captivity for 676 days, is risking our soldiers' lives in vain, is causing unnecessary harm to innumerable innocent civilians, and is degrading Israel's standing in the world to an unprecedented low,' it added on Sunday.
The statement — which was the first time the group had explicitly called for an end to the conflict — was issued as Palestinians continued dying from both Israeli fire and hunger.
Families of hostages were, meanwhile, growing increasingly desperate.
'The decision to send the army deeper into Gaza is a danger to my husband, Omri,' Lishay Miran-Lavi, wife of hostage Omri Miran, told a news conference Sunday as Netanyahu defended a previously unannounced operation in the besieged and bombarded Palestinian enclave.
Calling on Israel's largest companies, trade unions and the tech sector to strike, she said they should 'stop everything in order to save our hostages and our soldiers.'
'My husband and the other hostages are facing extreme danger,' Miran-Lavi added.
Hamas, other militants and Palestinian civilians seized about 250 hostages during the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack. Of the 50 hostages who remain in Gaza, about 20 are believed to be alive.
The families have called for the strike to take place Sunday, according to the Reuters news agency.
The Israeli security Cabinet had approved the destruction of Hamas strongholds in the 'central camps' and Al-Mawasi, In addition to Gaza City, Netanyahu said Sunday.
'The timeline that we set for the action is fairly quickly,' he said. 'We want, first of all, to enable safe zones to be established so the civilian population of Gaza City can move out.'
Israel's goal was not to stay in Gaza — just free it of Hamas, Netanyahu added.
'We have two remaining strongholds, OK? These are Gaza City and the central camps and Mawasi,' he said.
According to the United Nations, the camps are housing more than a half-million Palestinians displaced during Israel's military campaign triggered by Hamas' Oct. 7 terrorist attack, in which 1,200 people were killed.
The goals, he said, included demilitarizing the entire Palestinian territory, with the Israeli military having 'overriding security control' but a non-Israeli civilian administration taking charge.
He also continued to deny there was starvation in Gaza, claiming the situation is being exaggerated. 'No one in Gaza would have survived after two years of war' if Israel was implementing a 'starvation policy,' Netanyahu said.
More than 200 Palestinians have died from extreme malnutrition in Gaza, according to Palestinian health officials, even as Israel allows more aid to trickle into the territory.
According to local health officials, more than 61,000 Palestinians, including thousands of children, have been killed since Israel began its military campaign Oct. 7, 2023, after Hamas' terrorist attack.
World leaders also condemned Netanyahu's new plan at an emergency United Nations Security Council meeting.
'Expanding military operations will only endanger the lives of all civilians in Gaza, including the remaining hostages, and result in further unnecessary suffering,' Denmark, France, Greece, Slovenia and Britain said in a joint statement. 'This is a manmade crisis, and therefore urgent action is needed to halt starvation and to surge aid into Gaza.'
Later Sunday, Al Jazeera said five of its staff members — Anas al-Sharif, Mohammed Qreiqeh and camera operators Ibrahim Zaher, Mohammed Noufal and Moamen Aliwa — were killed 'in a targeted Israeli strike on a tent housing journalists in Gaza City.'
The Israeli military said that al-Sharif was 'the head of a terrorist cell in the Hamas terrorist organization and was responsible for advancing rocket attacks against Israeli civilians and IDF troops.'
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