Netanyahu says Israel plans Gaza takeover as officials discuss wider offensive
Asked in an interview with Fox News if Israel would 'take control of all of Gaza', Mr Netanyahu replied: 'We intend to, in order to assure our security, remove Hamas there, enable the population to be free of Gaza.'
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The security cabinet would still need to approve such a decision.
'We don't want to keep it. We want to have a security perimeter,' Mr Netanyahu said in the interview.
Destroyed buildings in the Gaza Strip (Raad Adayleh/AP)
'We want to hand it over to Arab forces that will govern it properly without threatening us and giving Gazans a good life.'
The security cabinet has begun discussing a possible expansion of Israel's military operations in Gaza, a move that, if it happens, would come despite fierce opposition from many in Israel, including the families of hostages who remain in Hamas captivity.
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The meeting comes on a day when at least 42 Palestinians were killed in airstrikes and shootings across southern Gaza, according to local hospitals.
Of the 42 people killed on Thursday, at least 13 were seeking aid in an Israeli military zone in southern Gaza where UN aid convoys are regularly overwhelmed by looters and desperate crowds.
Another two were killed on roads leading to nearby sites run by the Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, an American contractor, according to Nasser Hospital, which received the bodies.
Neither the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation nor the Israeli military, which helps secure the group's sites, commented on the strikes or shootings. The military zone, known as the Morag Corridor, is off limits to independent media.
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The Israeli military has accused Hamas of operating in densely populated civilian areas.
A Palestinian man waves a pistol as others struggle to collect humanitarian aid airdropped by parachutes into Gaza City (Jehad Alshrafi/AP)
Mr Netanyahu has been meeting top advisers and security officials to discuss what his office said are ways to 'further achieve Israel's goals in Gaza' after the breakdown of ceasefire talks last month.
An Israeli official said the security cabinet would hold a lengthy debate and approve an expanded military plan to conquer all or parts of Gaza not yet under Israeli control.
The official said that whatever is approved would be implemented gradually and in stages, with the idea of increasing pressure on Hamas.
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Such a step would trigger new international condemnation of Israel at a time when Gaza is plunging towards famine.
It also has drawn opposition across Israel, with hostage families saying it could threaten their loved ones.
Israel's army chief, Lt Gen Eyal Zamir, has warned that the plan would endanger the hostages and further strain Israel's army, which has been stretched thin during a nearly two-year war, according to Israeli media.
The comments appear to have exposed a rift between Mr Netanyahu and his army.
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In Gaza, where Israel's 22-month offensive has already killed tens of thousands of people, displaced most of the population, destroyed vast areas and caused severe and widespread hunger, Palestinians braced for further misery.
'There is nothing left to occupy,' said Maysaa al-Heila, who is living in a displacement camp. 'There is no Gaza left.'
Demonstrations were planned across Israel on Thursday to protest against the expected Cabinet decision.
Relatives and supporters of Israeli hostages held by Hamas sail along the coast of Ashkelon towards the Gaza Strip (Leo Correa/AP)
Earlier on Thursday almost two dozen relatives of hostages being held in Gaza set sail from southern Israel towards the maritime border with Gaza, where they broadcast messages from loudspeakers on boats to their relatives in Gaza.
The families denounced Mr Netanyahu's plan to expand military operations.
Yehuda Cohen, the father of Nimrod Cohen, an Israeli soldier held hostage in Gaza, said from the boat that Mr Netanyahu is prolonging the war to satisfy extremists in his government and to prevent it from collapsing.
'Netanyahu is working only for himself,' he said, pleading with the international community to put pressure on Mr Netanyahu to stop the war and save his son.
Meanwhile Israeli authorities returned the body of a Palestinian activist allegedly killed by an Israeli settler last week, after female Bedouin relatives launched a hunger strike in protest at the authority's decision to hold his body in custody.
The hunger strike was a rare public call from Bedouin women who traditionally mourn in private.
Witnesses said Awdah Al Hathaleen was shot and killed by a radical Israeli settler during a confrontation caught on video last month.
Israeli authorities said they would only return the body if the family agreed to certain conditions that would 'prevent public disorder'.
Despite dropping some of their demands, family members said Israel set up checkpoints and prevented many mourners from outside the village from attending.
Hamas-led militants killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted 251 in the October 7, 2023, attack that ignited the war.
They still hold 50 hostages, about 20 of them believed to be alive, after most of the rest were released in ceasefires or other deals.
Israel's retaliatory military offensive has killed more than 61,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza's health ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its count but says about half the dead have been women and children.
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The Documentary Podcast Israelis and the war in Gaza
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Foreign Minister Penny Wong has joined international condemnation of Israel's plans to control more of Gaza in a new ground offensive, warning it risks breaching international law and putting the lives of hostages and civilians in renewed danger. Wong joined the foreign ministers of Germany, Italy, New Zealand and the United Kingdom in a joint statement on Saturday, saying the plans by Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to control Gaza City will make already perilous situation worse. They said the 'worst-case scenario' of mass famine was already unfolding in Gaza. 'The plans that the government of Israel has announced risk violating international humanitarian law. Any attempts at annexation or of settlement extension violate international law,' the statement said. 'It will aggravate the catastrophic humanitarian situation, endanger the lives of the hostages, and further risk the mass displacement of civilians.' Sign up: AU Breaking News email Netanyahu's war cabinet on Friday went against advice of Israel's military leaders to agree on a further escalation in the 22-month war, planning a full takeover of Gaza's largest city that islikely to result in mass displacement of an estimated 1 million Palestinians. The moves sparked international outrage. Germany's government quickly moved to suspended the delivery of weapons that could be used in the fighting. The plan has not been opposed by US President Donald Trump, Netanyahu's strongest backer internationally. Wong and her counterparts said terror group Hamas and the Israeli government should work with the international community to end the war, through an immediate and permanent ceasefire. Such a development must enable the provision of a massive, immediate and unimpeded humanitarian assistance, 'as the worst-case scenario of a famine is unfolding in Gaza'. 'Hamas must release all hostages without further delay or precondition and must ensure they are humanely treated and not subject to cruelty and humiliation,' the statement said. 'We call on the government of Israel to urgently find solutions to amend its recent registration system of international humanitarian organisations, to ensure these vital actors of humanitarian aid can continue their essential work again in line with humanitarian principles to reach the civilians in need in Gaza. 'Their exclusion would be an egregious signal.' Hamas said in a statement that Netanyahu's plans meant he had abandoned the surviving hostages seized by the group in its surprise attack on Israel in October 2023, which triggered the war. The statement accused the Israeli prime minister of 'sacrificing them to serve his personal interests and extremist ideological agenda'. Countries including Australia have called for a political solution in Gaza that does not involve any of the Hamas leadership. Israel said it wanted to eventually hand control of Gaza over to a group of friendly Arab forces who are opposed to Hamas. Netanyahu has released a list of five key objectives for the escalated fighting: disarming Hamas, returning all hostages, demilitarising the entire Gaza Strip, taking security control of the territory, and establishing 'an alternative civil administration that is neither Hamas nor the Palestinian Authority'. Wong on Friday said Israel should not go down its planned path, and said permanent forced displacement would be a violation of international law. But frequent statements from world leaders appear not to be deterring Israel. Netanyahu's office told international media the Israeli army would prepare to 'take control of Gaza City while distributing humanitarian assistance to the civilian population outside combat zones'. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is expected to discuss the war during a meeting with his New Zealand counterpart, Christopher Luxon, in Queenstown on Saturday.
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MARK ALMOND: Israel's own military chiefs fear, with good reason, that they're walking into a trap
Napoleon Bonaparte once received some memorable words of advice from that wily French diplomat and statesman Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Perigord. The great general's ill-judged decision to kidnap and execute a royalist opponent in 1804, which sent shudders of fear around European capitals, was 'worse than a crime ', remarked Talleyrand. 'It was a mistake.' Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu might consider those words as he draws up plans to intensify the war in Gaza. Crime or no crime, he is making a huge mistake. Why, in ordering a ground assault on densely populated Gaza City – an initiative announced in the early hours of Friday morning – is Netanyahu adopting a policy that splits both Israeli opinion and his own military advisers? Perhaps a prime minister who has led his country through so many crises for 25 years thinks he can strike a decisive blow and crush Hamas terrorists in their bunkers – as Hitler was eventually destroyed 80 years ago. Israel, for obvious reasons, is haunted by the lessons of the Second World War. Netanyahu's supporters point out that Allied forces killed countless thousands of civilians in order to defeat Hitler and Emperor Hirohito of Japan. Nor should we underestimate the sheer trauma of the bloodshed on October 7, 2023, when Hamas terrorists murdered 1,200 Israeli civilians and took a further 250 hostages to be used, despicably, as human shields. Israel feels its very survival is at stake. And it is certainly true that Hamas, although crippled, is not eradicated. After 22 months of war, Israel's campaign of bombs and rockets has reached its limit of effectiveness because so much is destroyed already. While Israel now controls about 70 per cent of the Gaza Strip, the most heavily populated coastal area and Gaza City itself remain unoccupied. Even in the areas where the Israeli army does hold sway, some fighting continues. But sending Israeli sons and brothers to fight hand-to-hand in Gaza City's maze of courtyards and tunnels? Perhaps the prime minister has been dazzled by the brilliance of Israel's intelligence strikes against Hezbollah and Iran. Or by the overwhelming success of its attacks on Hamas, led by planes, rockets and robots of superlative sophistication. There are personal reasons why Netanyahu might wish to prolong the conflict, of course. His hard-Right coalition partners want the fighting to continue – and without their support, his government falls. The prime minister is in legal jeopardy, moreover. While the serious fraud charges levelled against him in three cases at home are unrelated to Gaza, he might well feel that Israel's continuing state of emergency is essential to prolong his trial. It has worked so far. And that kicking the can down the road is no more than common sense while he remains in office and out of jail. However, Israel's military success to date emphatically does not mean it can occupy Gaza City – which still has a population of 800,000 – without enormous bloodshed. And none are more sceptical than Israel's own commanders who fear, with good reason, that they are walking into a trap. The Israel Defence Forces have been mounting raids into Gaza City since 2023; its troops and tanks have faced fierce resistance both above ground and in the darkness below. Netanyahu is demanding his soldiers clear out a spider's web of tunnels offering sanctuary for terrorist fighters as well as dungeons for the surviving hostages. Casualties will grow. Israeli army officers and veterans have already spoken out, fearing the assault will drag soldiers – and Israel itself – into a quagmire. Relatives of the surviving hostages understandably fear an army offensive will lead to their deaths, too. 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There is no sign that Egypt, Jordan or Saudi Arabia are willing to send troops to police an angry, wounded population which, incidentally, blames Arab states for not helping them in their hour of need. Nor will Egypt open its doors to Palestinian refugees. Why would it allow Hamas subversives to unite with their friends in Egypt's radical Muslim Brotherhood, who continue to oppose the Cairo government? Like it or not, it looks as though Israel will be left holding the Gaza baby, incurring vast costs in blood and treasure to do so. The reaction is no better elsewhere around the world. Netanyahu's plans put Israel at odds with old allies, including Britain and France, and risks handing a propaganda victory to the terrorists. Populations and politicians across the West offered unflinching support to Israel in the wake of October 7. But almost two years on, the shock of the slaughter is wearing off amid genuine horror at the humanitarian consequences of Israel's war. Anyone looking at photographs of the devastation might conclude that the situation in Gaza is now as bad as it could possibly be. But that's not true. The tragic reality is that the humanitarian situation will worsen radically if Israeli tanks and ground troops attack such a densely populated area. It could further damage Israel's already strained diplomatic relationships, including its vital friendship with the United States of America. Without Washington's support – through military aid, intelligence information and economic support – a small country like Israel simply cannot sustain a 'forever war', however tough it likes to think itself. Despite his strong support for Israel, Donald Trump has repeatedly made clear his revulsion at civilian casualties, whether in Ukraine or Gaza. The US leader wants to be the 'peace president', after all. It would be unwise of Netanyahu to assume that Washington's guarantee of Israel's security is the same thing as carte blanche. If fresh bloodshed upsets the President or complicates America's relations elsewhere around the world, Trump could well pull the rug from beneath Netanyahu and Israel. It is by no means unthinkable. Which is why it's so unwise of Netanyahu to rely on a narrowing base of hard-line supporters inside his parliamentary bunker. World revulsion at Hamas's brutal rampage is fading. Alarm at the human cost of the Gaza campaign is growing. And Benjamin Netanyahu, once the great survivor of Israeli politics, would be well-advised to accept it. A ground war in Gaza City means backing Israel into a dead end – where he, too, will find there's no escape.
