Israel’s security council has approved a plan to take control of Gaza City – and the move has been sharply criticised by the United Nations, the British Prime Minister Kier Starmer, and other leaders.
While this morning’s plan focused on taking military control of Gaza city in the north of the territory, when asked by Fox News in an interview yesterday if Israel would take the entire territory, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu replied: “We intend to”.
He added that Israel wanted to hand over the territory to Arab forces who would govern – but did not elaborate on details.
In a post on X, the Israeli’s office said the council had voted by a majority to adopt “the five principles for ending the war” – which they listed as follows:
1. Disarming Hamas of its weapons.
2. Return of all hostages – both the living and the deceased.
3. Demilitarisation of the Gaza Strip.
4. Israeli security control over the Gaza Strip.
5. Establishment of an alternative civilian administration that is neither Hamas nor the Palestinian Authority.
“The IDF will prepare to take control of Gaza City while providing humanitarian aid to the civilian population outside the combat zones,” Netanyahu’s office said.
Hamas in a statement said: “Netanyahu’s plans to escalate the aggression confirm beyond any doubt his desire to get rid of the captives and sacrifice them in pursuit of his personal interests and extremist ideological agenda.”
251 hostages were captured during Hamas’s October 7th attack in 2023, and while 49 are still being held in Gaza, the Israeli military says they believe 27 are dead.
The UN has called for the Israeli government’s plan for a complete military takeover of Gaza City to be “immediately halted”.
“It 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 realisation of the agreed two-State solution and to the right of Palestinians to self-determination,” UN human rights chief Volker Turke said.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has said Israel’s decision to take control of Gaza City was “wrong”, saying it would not help secure the release of hostages and would bring more bloodshed.
“The Israeli Government’s decision to further escalate its offensive in Gaza is wrong, and we urge it to reconsider immediately,” he said in a statement.
“This action will do nothing to bring an end to this conflict or to help secure the release of the hostages. It will only bring more bloodshed.”
Australia has also Israel to back down from its plan for Gaza city. Foreign Minister Penny Wong said that “permanent forced displacement is a violation of international law.”
However, in its statement this morning, Mr Netanyahu’s office said the political security cabinet, in a majority, believed that “the alternative plan presented in the cabinet would not achieve the defeat of Hamas nor the return of the hostages”.