By MELANIE LIDMAN and WAFAA SHURAFA Associated Press
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday that to destroy Hamas Israel intends to take full control of the Gaza Strip and eventually transfer its administration to friendly Arab forces, as the Security Cabinet discussed a widening of its 22-month offensive.
Expanding military operations in Gaza would put the lives of countless Palestinians and the roughly 20 remaining Israeli hostages at risk while further isolating Israel internationally. Israel already controls around three quarters of the devastated territory.
Families of hostages held in Gaza fear an escalation could doom their loved ones, and some protested outside the Security Cabinet meeting in Jerusalem. Former top Israeli security officials have also come out against the plan, warning of a quagmire with little added military benefit.
An Israeli official had earlier said the Security Cabinet would discuss plans to conquer all or parts of Gaza not yet under Israeli control. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity pending a formal decision, said that whatever is approved would be implemented gradually to increase pressure on Hamas.
Israel’s air and ground war has killed tens of thousands of people in Gaza, displaced most of the population, destroyed vast areas and caused severe and widespread hunger. Palestinians are braced for further misery.
“There is nothing left to occupy,” said Maysaa al-Heila, who is living in a displacement camp. “There is no Gaza left.”
At least 42 Palestinians were killed in Israeli airstrikes and shootings across southern Gaza on Thursday, according to local hospitals.
A new escalation could deepen Israel’s isolation
Asked in an interview with Fox News 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 there, enable the population to be free of Gaza.”
“We don’t want to keep it. We want to have a security perimeter,” Netanyahu said in the interview. “We want to hand it over to Arab forces that will govern it properly without threatening us and giving Gazans a good life.”
The Security Cabinet, which would need to approve such a decision, began meeting Thursday evening, according to Israeli media, and it was expected to stretch into the night.
Israel’s military chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, warned against occupying Gaza, saying it would endanger the hostages and put further strain on the military after nearly two years of war, according to Israeli media reports.
Hamas-led militants abducted 251 people and killed around 1,200 in the Oct. 7, 2023, attack that triggered the war. Most of the hostages have been released in ceasefires or other deals but 50 remain inside Gaza, around 20 of them believed by Israel to be alive.
Almost two dozen relatives of hostages set sail from southern Israel towards the maritime border with Gaza on Thursday, where they broadcast messages from loudspeakers.
Yehuda Cohen, the father of Nimrod Cohen, an Israeli soldier held in Gaza, said from the boat that Netanyahu is prolonging the war to satisfy extremists in his governing coalition. Netanyahu’s far-right allies want to escalate the war, relocate most of Gaza’s population to other countries and reestablish Jewish settlements that were dismantled in 2005.
“Netanyahu is working only for himself,” Cohen said.
Palestinians killed and wounded as they seek food
Israel’s military offensive has killed over 61,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not say how many were fighters or civilians. The ministry is part of the Hamas-run government and staffed by medical professionals who keep and share detailed records.
The United Nations and independent experts view the ministry’s figures as the most reliable estimate of casualties. Israel has disputed them without offering a toll of its own.
Of the 42 people killed on Thursday, at least 13 were seeking aid in an Israeli military zone in southern Gaza where U.N. aid convoys are regularly overwhelmed by looters and desperate crowds. Another two were killed on roads leading to nearby sites run by the Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, an American contractor, according to Nasser Hospital, which received the bodies.
GHF said there were no violent incidents at or near its sites on Thursday. There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military. The military zone, known as the Morag Corridor, is off limits to independent media.
Hundreds of people have been killed in recent weeks while heading to GHF sites and in chaotic scenes around U.N. convoys, most of which are overwhelmed by looters and crowds of hungry people. The U.N. human rights office, witnesses and health officials say Israeli forces have regularly opened fire toward the crowds going back to May, when Israel lifted a complete 2 1/2 month blockade.
The military says it has only fired warning shots when crowds approach its forces. GHF says its armed contractors have only used pepper spray or fired into the air on some occasions to prevent deadly stampedes.
Israel and GHF face mounting criticism
Doctors Without Borders, a medical charity known by its French acronym MSF, published a blistering report denouncing the GHF distribution system. “This is not aid. It is orchestrated killing, ” it said.
MSF runs two health centers very close to GHF sites in southern Gaza and said it had treated 1,380 people injured near the sites between June 7 and July 20, including 28 people who were dead upon arrival. Of those, at least 147 had suffered gunshot wounds — including at least 41 children.
MSF said hundreds more suffered physical assault injuries from chaotic scrambles for food at the sites, including head injuries, suffocation, and multiple patients with severely aggravated eyes after being sprayed at close range with pepper spray. It said the cases it saw were only a fraction of the overall casualties connected to GHF sites; a nearby Red Cross field hospital has independently reported receiving thousands of people wounded by gunshots as they sought aid.
“The level of mismanagement, chaos and violence at GHF distribution sites amounts to either reckless negligence or a deliberately designed death trap,” the report said.
GHF said the “accusations are both false and disgraceful” and accused MSF of “amplifying a disinformation campaign” orchestrated by Hamas.
The U.S. and Israel helped set up the GHF system as an alternative to the U.N.-run aid delivery system that has sustained Gaza for decades, accusing Hamas of siphoning off assistance. The U.N. denies any mass diversion by Hamas. It accuses GHF of forcing Palestinians to risk their lives to get food and say it advances Israel’s plans for further mass displacement.
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This story has been corrected after an earlier version said 13 people were killed heading to GHF sites.
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Shurafa reported from Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip. Associated Press writers Josef Federman contributed from Jerusalem and Natalie Melzer contributed from Nahariya.
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