Israeli plan to occupy Gaza sparks uncertainty, fear among hostage families

Washington Post

4 days ago

TEL AVIV — Israel's plans to launch a full-scale occupation of the Gaza Strip, details of which officials are set to discuss this week, is raising questions among security officials about the future and strategy of the military campaign. It's also sparking anxiety among many relatives of hostages — they fear that expanded military operations will put their loved ones' lives at risk.
The plan to occupy all of Gaza, which was reported by The Washington Post and other outlets Monday, means that military operations will also take place 'in areas where hostages are being held,' said a person familiar with the prime minister's decisions who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak with the media.
A decision to occupy the enclave would require approval from Israel's security cabinet, which includes Netanyahu's ultranationalist coalition partners Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich. Since the start of the war nearly two years ago, Ben Gvir and Smotrich have argued that a full conquest of the Palestinian enclave — and the establishment of Jewish settlements in the areas that now hold some 2 million Gazans — is the only way to achieve Israel's war goal of eliminating Palestinian militant organization Hamas.
Last month, Orit Strook, who is a member of Ben Gvir and Smotrich's political bloc, said in a radio interview that 'a great effort should be made to ensure that the hostages there are not harmed, but it is wrong to avoid defeating Hamas in those areas.'
But such a meeting was not scheduled as of Tuesday afternoon, according to a person familiar with decisions in Netanyahu's office, who said that only a smaller-scale 'security consultations' were expected to take place later Tuesday with top defense officials.
That meeting will include Netanyahu, Defense Minister Israel Katz, Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir, Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer and IDF Operations Director Itzik Cohen, according to a report on Army Radio.
Many members of Israel's military and security establishment, including former top officials, have long disagreed with Netanyahu and his pro-settler coalition partners, arguing that a ceasefire deal that would release all the remaining hostages and formally end the war should be the top priority.
They have also argued, in previous interviews with The Post and Israeli media as well as public statements, that 22 months of war has weakened Hamas militarily to the extent that it would no longer be able to pose the security threat on Israel that it did before Oct. 7, 2023. That's when it attacked southern Israel, killing some 1,200 and taking 251 hostages, and triggering Israel's devastating war in Gaza.
Yair Golan, an opposition politician and former deputy chief of the staff of the IDF, posted on X a call to Zamir, to 'stand firm against the political echelon that is dragging us into an eternal war in the Gaza Strip.'
Katz, the defense minister and a Netanyahu loyalist, vowed on Tuesday to 'professionally implement' the government's military plans for Gaza.
'The defeat of Hamas in Gaza, while creating the conditions for the return of the hostages, are the main objectives of the war in Gaza, and we must take all necessary actions to achieve them,' he said during a visit to the enclave.
'Once the political leadership makes the necessary decisions, the military echelon, as it has done in every front of this war, will professionally implement the policy determined.'
Israel's war in Gaza has killed more than 60,000 people, according to Gaza's Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between combatants and civilians but says that the majority of those killed are women and children. Inside Gaza, the uncertainty over what lies ahead weighs heavy on the population. Over two years, Gazans have been exhausted by near-constant Israeli bombardment, gunfire and forced displacement, and are now in the midst of a rapidly growing starvation crisis.
The Gaza Health Ministry said Tuesday that eight people had died of malnutrition, including a child, bringing the total number of people who have died from starvation during the war to 188, including 94 children.
'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,' U.N. Human Rights Chief Volker Türk said Monday. 'Israel continues to restrict severely humanitarian assistance from entering Gaza, and the aid that is permitted to enter is nowhere near what is needed.'
COGAT, the branch of the Israeli Defense Ministry that coordinates civil affairs in the occupied territories, said Tuesday that it would again begin allowing private sector merchants to bring goods into Gaza.
Netanyahu has not publicly referred to the reports about his decision to completely occupy Gaza, which came hours after his government voted to dismiss the country's attorney general, the chief prosecutor in his ongoing corruption case.
Some 50 hostages are still held by Hamas and other militant groups Gaza, at least 20 of whom are presumed to be alive.
'We are gravely concerned by reports of an expansion of fighting in Gaza, which puts the hostages' lives in even greater danger,' the Hostage and Missing Families Forum, which represents most of the hostage family community, said in a statement.
'We are now nearing one year since six hostages were tragically killed while IDF forces were reported nearby,' the group said, referring to the killing last year of six hostages held in a narrow tunnel underneath Rafah in southern Gaza, which horrified Israelis and brought hundreds of thousands of protesters into the streets.
An IDF investigation found that Israel's ground activities last year in the area of Rafah, in southern Gaza, 'although gradual and cautious, had a circumstantial influence' on the Hamas militants who killed the hostages.
Cheeseman reported from Caldicot, Wales.