AP (“Israel announces plan to retake Gaza City in another escalation of the war“):
Israel said early Friday that it plans to take over Gaza City in another escalation of its 22-month war with Hamas. The decision, taken after a late-night meeting of top officials, came despite mounting international calls to end the war and protests by many in Israel who fear for the remaining hostages held by Hamas.
Israel’s air and ground war has already killed tens of thousands of people in Gaza, displaced most of the population, destroyed vast areas and pushed the territory toward famine. Another major ground operation would almost certainly exacerbate the humanitarian catastrophe.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had earlier outlined more sweeping plans in an interview with Fox News, saying Israel planned to take control of all of Gaza. Israel already controls around three quarters of the devastated territory.
The final decision, which came after Israel’s Security Cabinet met through the night, stopped short of that, and may be aimed in part at pressuring Hamas to accept a ceasefire on Israel’s terms.
It may also reflect the reservations of Israel’s top general, who reportedly warned that it 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.
NYT (“Israeli Security Cabinet Approves Plan to Take Control of Gaza City“):
The Israeli government early on Friday approved a plan to expand the war by taking control of Gaza City, a pivotal and risky decision that went against the recommendations of the Israeli military.
After 10 hours of deliberations, a majority of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s security cabinet backed his proposal, according to a predawn statement from his office.
At a later stage, the military could potentially push into central areas of the enclave where Hamas is believed to be holding Israeli hostages and where Israeli troops have largely refrained from operating before. But the government announcement did not explicitly pledge to do so.
The goal, according to the statement, is to achieve a decisive victory over Hamas, which led the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel that started the war. The plan also allows for the provision of humanitarian aid to the civilian population “outside the combat zones,” it said.
[…]
The cabinet also approved five principles for ending the war, including the disarming of Hamas; the return of all 50 hostages, 20 of whom are believed to be alive; the demilitarization of Gaza; Israeli security control over the enclave; and the establishment of an alternative civilian administration there that involves neither Hamas nor the Palestinian Authority, the rival Western-backed body that exercises limited control in parts of the occupied West Bank.
It is likely to take the military days, at least, to call up reserve forces, carry out troop deployments for a push into Gaza City and allow time for the forced evacuation of tens of thousands of Palestinians from the new areas of combat.
Some analysts have said that the plan for the new offensive may be a threat to compel Hamas to offer concessions in stalled cease-fire negotiations. Days ago, American and Israeli officials floated the idea of an all-or-nothing deal for Gaza in which all the hostages would be released in exchange for Palestinian prisoners and the war would end under certain conditions. Otherwise, the Israeli military would continue its campaign.
The Israeli military has said that it has already conquered about 75 percent of Gaza. The coastal strip stretching from Gaza City in the north to Khan Younis in the south is the main area outside Israeli control. Many of the two million Palestinians in Gaza, including those displaced from their homes, have squeezed into tents, makeshift shelters and apartments in those areas.
NBC News (“Satellite images show Israel building up forces for a possible ground invasion of Gaza, sources say“):
Commercial satellite images show the Israeli military building up troops and equipment near the border with Gaza that would support a possible new ground invasion of the Palestinian enclave, according to three U.S. officials and a former official who viewed the imagery.
The images show troop movements and formations that the four sources recognized as signs of an imminent major ground operation.
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If there is a new military operation, it could include efforts to retrieve hostages held by Hamas and expand humanitarian assistance in areas outside the fighting, the three U.S. officials and a person briefed on Israeli discussions said. Israeli troops have been conducting ground operations in Gaza since Oct. 27, 2023, with pauses during two ceasefires.
Netanyahu said Thursday on Fox News that Israel intended to take control of all of Gaza. “We intend to, in order to assure our security, remove Hamas there, enable the population to be free of Gaza and to pass it to civilian governance that is not Hamas and not anyone advocating the destruction of Israel. That’s what we want to do.”
Pressed again on that point, specifically on whether he meant Israel would “take control of the entire 26-mile Gaza Strip,” Netanyahu said: “Well, we don’t want to keep it. We want to have a security perimeter. We don’t want to govern it.”
Writing at Haaretz, Amos Harel declares, “Netanyahu’s Gaza Takeover Plan Puts Israel Firmly on the Road to Perpetual War.”
The crisis between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir over the next phase of the war in the Gaza Strip is even worse than the media has been reporting this week.
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Early Friday morning, after a marathon meeting, the cabinet approved Netanyahu’s plan to prepare for seizing control of Gaza City. Zamir thinks this would be disastrous. It’s not inconceivable that he will be pushed into resigning, or fired, due to the dispute, and that would cause numerous secondary earthquakes in the IDF.
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Throughout this war, the longest in Israel’s history, Netanyahu’s fans have claimed that he’s implementing an orderly strategy that has racked up major achievements (Iran, Lebanon, Syria, the blows dealt to Hamas) despite hitches along the way. But in practice, he has landed Israel in serious difficulties.
From May to July, there was an opportunity to reach at least a partial hostage deal with Hamas, which Netanyahu claimed to want. But his decision to expand the war by launching the extensive ground operation in May, known as Operation Gideon’s Chariots, after he had earlier unilaterally violated a cease-fire, didn’t bring the results that he and the army said it would.
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In mid-July, before the hunger crisis erupted, it seemed as if a partial hostage deal was nigh. Israel made a big deal about occupying two corridors in southern Gaza’s Morag region, in practice so that it could concede them in the deal. Senior defense officials were cautiously optimistic, as if the initial 60-day cease-fire being discussed would this time result in a larger plan to end the war. But Hamas was quick to grasp the new circumstances, and ever since, it has showed no sign of flexibility in the talks. It even added two demands – freeing the captured members of its elite Nukhba force, which perpetrated the October 7 massacre, and postponing the release of the last hostage until the reconstruction of Gaza has begun. It started playing up the need to rebuild Gaza in part to signal its intention of remaining part of the territory’s government.
These demands infuriated both Netanyahu and U.S. President Donald Trump and led the talks into a dead end. Effectively, the entire war is stuck. The talks have been halted, the Israeli negotiators have been recalled from Qatar and the fighting in Gaza is more static than ever due to the aid crisis and the lack of a decision on where the army goes from here. To use a sports analogy, Netanyahu prefers going wide to going direct. He isn’t seeking a swift victory. He wants to leave open as many alternatives as possible and buy time while also avoiding any threat to his governing coalition.
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Zamir also has no good solutions for the crisis that has been created. The May ground offensive didn’t achieve its goal, and in Zamir’s view, that’s because the government didn’t leverage its achievements for diplomacy. Now, lacking any ability for force Hamas to sign a deal, Israel is improvising alternative solutions. Zamir has used the ebb in the fighting to thin out the troops in Gaza. The army has also taken steps to reduce the burden on reservists this year and has ended its policy of automatically extending conscript soldiers’ service through emergency call-up orders.
Harel rightly points out that the brutality of the war has demonstrably lowered Israel’s standing in the world community, including the United States. Still, feckless and ruthless as Netanyahu is, his war aims are widely shared in Israel.
Obviously, a diplomatic endstate is desired. Hamas is a terrible negotiating partner. They are clearly willing to fight to the last Gazan. They welcome the destruction of Gaza and the horrible humanitarian crisis, because Israel is held to the standards of a civilized nation-state and is therefore isolated. Hamas has no such constraints.
Netanyahu claims that the goal of invasion is to temporarily occupy the territory to establish a security situation that forces Hamas to settle on Israel’s terms. But I very much doubt Israel will again allow the territory to be governed by its enemy.
