Hamas denounces the plan as a “blatant blow” to the hostage negotiations and claims sole authority in the Strip.
The Israeli opposition accuses the prime minister of leading the country "to a political collapse" amid a "generational disaster."
The Israeli government approved this Friday the operation planned by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to take control of the city of , the largest in the enclave, as a prelude to a plan of “five principles to end the war” against Hamas. These principles include assuming “security control” of the territory and expelling the Islamist movement from all governing bodies in the Palestinian territory, as well as the disarmament of its militias.
Netanyahu’s “five premises” for ending the conflict, as the president announced last night in an interview with Fox News, include the disarmament of Hamas militias, the demilitarization of the Gaza Strip, the aforementioned security control of the enclave, and the “establishment of an alternative civilian administration that is neither Hamas nor the Palestinian Authority,” with a view to the “return of all hostages, both alive and dead.”
Finally, early this morning, “the Security Cabinet approved the prime minister’s proposal to defeat Hamas (the Islamic Resistance Movement), and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) will prepare to take control of Gaza City,” Netanyahu’s office said in a statement, noting that, simultaneously, they will “distribute humanitarian aid to the civilian population outside the combat zones.”
Netanyahu’s office asserted in its statement that the decision was supported by a “majority of votes” in the Cabinet. In this regard, it specified that the majority of Cabinet members “believed that the alternative plan presented to the Security Cabinet would not achieve the defeat of Hamas or the return of the hostages.”
The statement, which was made public more than nine hours after the meeting began on Thursday afternoon, does not provide further details about the alternative plan, although it may refer to Israeli Army Chief Eyal Zamir, who on the same day reiterated his rejection of the Prime Minister’s proposal due to the situation of the hostages still held in Gaza.
Israel says it currently controls 75 percent of the Strip, while the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has largely avoided entering the remaining 25 percent—which primarily comprises Gaza City and the refugee camps in central Gaza—due to the belief that most of the hostages are held there.
Almost all of Gaza’s two million residents are currently in the area of the Strip not under Israeli military control, 800,000 of them in Gaza City.
HAMAS WILL NOT RECOGNIZE ANY ISRAEL-BOLTED AUTHORITY
Hours before the official announcement, as Netanyahu explained the outlines of his proposal to the US network, Hamas reacted sharply to the prime minister’s plan, stating that it represents a “blatant blow” to the negotiation process and warning that it would treat this new authority proposed by Netanyahu as “an ‘occupying’ force linked to Israel.”
“Netanyahu’s plans to expand the aggression confirm beyond a doubt that he seeks to rid himself of his captives and sacrifice them,” the statement said. “We emphasize that the Gaza Strip will remain impregnable and that any attempt to expand the aggression against the Palestinian people will exact a high and costly price from the occupation.”
For his part, prominent Israeli opposition figure Yair Lapid has harshly criticized the governing coalition as a whole, arguing that the decision taken by Netanyahu—”dragged along” by his allies, Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir and Finance Minister Belazel Smotrich—”will cause the deaths of the hostages and many soldiers, cost Israeli taxpayers tens of billions, and lead to political collapse.”
“That is precisely what Hamas wanted: for Israel to end up trapped in the territory without a goal, without defining the outlook for the next day, in a useless occupation that no one understands where it leads,” he asserted on his social media account, referring to a measure that he called “a disaster that will lead to many more disasters.”
Lapid also lamented that the Israeli authorities ended up approving the occupation of Gaza City “in total disagreement with the opinion of the army and security commanders, and without taking into account the wear and tear and exhaustion of the fighting forces.”
For his part, Yisrael Beitenu party chairman and former defense minister Avigdor Lieberman stated that the cabinet’s decision to push ahead with the takeover of Gaza City despite the objections of senior defense officials “demonstrates that life-and-death decisions are being made in opposition to security considerations and the objectives of the war.”
“The ‘October 7’ prime minister is once again sacrificing the safety of Israeli citizens for the sake of his position,” added Lieberman, who has been insisting for months, like much of the opposition, that Netanyahu is using the Gaza operation to perpetuate himself in power and divert attention from the corruption cases for which he is on trial, at the expense, first, of the hostages and then of the rest of the population.
Yair Golan, leader of the Democrats party, says the decision means “more hostages will be abandoned to their fate” and that the move is typical of Netanyahu: “He is weak, easily pressured, lacks decision-making capacity, and lacks the ability to bridge the gap between what represents the professional level and the group of messianic figures who control the government.”
The decision is “a generational disaster,” Golan added to Israeli Army Radio.
