Israel yesterday said that it plans to take over Gaza City after a late-night meeting of top officials.
Israel’s air and ground war has already killed tens of thousands of people in Gaza and destroyed vast areas.
Hamas said that people in Gaza would “remain defiant against occupation.”
Photo: Reuters
“Expanding of aggression against our Palestinian people will not be a walk in the park,” the group said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has signaled plans for even broader war
On Thursday, Netanyahu outlined more sweeping plans in an interview with Fox News, saying that Israel planned to take control of all of Gaza.
Israel already controls about three-quarters of the territory.
Asked in the interview ahead of the Security Cabinet meeting if Israel would “take control of all of Gaza,” Netanyahu replied: “We intend to, in order to assure our security, remove Hamas [from] there.”
“We don’t want to keep it. We want to have a security perimeter,” Netanyahu said. “We want to hand it over to Arab forces that will govern it properly without threatening us and giving Gazans a good life.”
Israel’s plan, announced after the Israeli Security Cabinet met through Thursday night, stopped short of what Netanyahu had suggested and might be aimed in part at pressuring Hamas to accept a ceasefire on Israel’s terms.
It might also reflect the reservations of Israel’s top general, who reportedly warned that expanding operations would endanger the remaining 20 or so living hostages held by Hamas and further strain Israel’s army after nearly two years of regional wars.
The military “will prepare to take control of Gaza City while providing humanitarian aid to the civilian population outside the combat zones,” Netanyahu’s office said in a statement after the meeting.
Israel has repeatedly bombarded Gaza City and carried out numerous raids there, only to repeatedly return to neighborhoods as militants regroup.
It is one of the few areas in Gaza that has not been turned into an Israeli buffer zone or placed under evacuation orders.
A major ground operation there could displace tens of thousands of people and further disrupt efforts to deliver food to the hunger-stricken territory.
In Geneva, Switzerland, later yesterday, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk said that “the Israeli government’s plan for a complete military takeover of the occupied Gaza Strip must be immediately halted.”
The plan “runs contrary to the ruling of the International Court of Justice that Israel must bring its occupation to an end as soon as possible, to the realization of the agreed two-state solution and to the right of Palestinians to self-determination,” Turk said.
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