Israel says that he will take charge of the city of Gaza, climbing his war with Hamas, even when he faces increasing international calls to end the 22 -month conflict.
The plan, announced the local time of early Friday after a cabinet meeting that extended until late at night, stops below the complete occupation of the Gaza Strip that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had discussed before. But it marks a greater escalation of the conflict, which began after the terrorist attack of October 7, 2023 of Hamas against Israel.
The Israeli army “will prepare to take control of the city of Gaza while distributing humanitarian assistance to the civilian population outside the combat areas,” said Netanyahu’s office in a statement after the meeting.
NBC News previously reported that commercial satellite images showed that the Israeli army builds troops and equipment near the border with Gaza that would support a possible new land invasion of the Palestinian enclave directed by Hamas.
Critics have said that taking care of the city of Gaza would even more endangered the remaining hostages in the hands of Hamas, the Israeli army strengthened even more in the conflict and would result in a greater number of Palestinian civilian casualties.
The Israeli announcement occurs when the 2 million residents of Gaza, much of which have already been destroyed, are on the verge of famine, which causes international outrage. The threat of a new offensive in Gaza can intend in part of pressing Hamas in a high fire in Israeli terms.
The war began with the terrorist attack of October 7 against Israel, during which militants led by Hamas killed some 1,200 people and kidnapped another 251. Israel believes that about 20 of the remaining 50 hostages in Gaza are still alive.
The Israeli air and land offensive has killed more than 61,000 people in Gaza, including thousands of children, according to local health officials, whose numbers are considered credible by the United Nations.
The city of Gaza, which before the war was the largest in the enclave, has already been attacked by multiple bombings and Israeli raids. Hundreds of thousands of people fled from the city after they told him to evacuate early in the war, but many have returned and it is not clear how many live there now.
An Israeli offensive there could displace tens of thousands of people and make it even more difficult to provide humanitarian aid.
Netanyahu had said on Thursday that Israel plans to take control of Gaza in its entirety, but finally delivers the responsibility of governing the Arab forces.
In an interview in Fox News in Jerusalem, Netanyahu said that the Israeli “intend to” take care of Gaza “to ensure our security, eliminate Hamas there” and pass the enclave “to civil governance that is no Hamas and no one who defends the destruction of Israel.”
He said that Israel, who already controls about three quarters of Gaza, does not want to “keep it” in the long term.
“We want to have a security perimeter. We don’t want to govern it. We don’t want to be there as a government body,” he said. “We want to deliver it to the Arab forces that will govern it properly without threatening and giving the gacanes a good life. That is not possible with Hamas.”
A senior Hamas official, Osama Hamdan, said in an interview with Al Jazeera on Thursday that any new step that the Israeli government took in Gaza will not succeed.
“The Israeli occupation seeks to break the will of the Palestinian people through more bloodshed and household destruction,” he said. “But it will fail.”
In recent weeks, the global opinion on Israel’s military actions in Gaza seems to have changed as the images of emaciated children have appeared in the media around the world.
The main body of the world about hunger, the integrated classification of the food security phase, said last week that the “worst hungry cases” is now developing in Gaza.
Finding food has become more difficult and deadly for the Palestinians since an organization backed by the United States and Israel, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), took over the help distribution process at the end of May, after Israel raised a block of two and a half months.
Hundreds of people have been killed or injured in recent weeks while desperate crowds seek to obtain limited humanitarian aid. Of the 46 people killed in Gaza on Thursday, 20 were waiting for help near the US distribution points, A NBC News, a spokesman for the Ministry of Health of Gaza, Dr. Khalil Al-Daqran.
The Israeli army, that the United Nations Office of Human Rights says that it is responsible for most murders, says it does not address civilians.
Several aid organizations have blamed GHF’s help distribution methods for the death of Palestinian civilians. Doctors Without Borders, a medical assistance organization also known by its French name, Médecins Sans Frontières, criticized GHF’s help distribution in a report issued on Thursday.
“The medical data is clear. This is not help. Death is orchestra,” the report said.
GHF described the group’s accusations as “false and shameful,” saying they were helping Hamas.
