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.
Asked in an interview with Fox News 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.” The Security Cabinet would still need to approve such a decision.
’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.”
An Israeli official had earlier said the Security Cabinet would hold a lengthy debate and approve an expanded military plan 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.
In Gaza, where Israel’s air and ground war has already killed tens of thousands of people, displaced most of the population, destroyed vast areas and caused severe and widespread hunger, Palestinians 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
Netanyahu has been meeting this week with advisers to discuss what his office said are ways to “further achieve Israel’s goals in Gaza” after the breakdown of ceasefire talks last month. The Security Cabinet meeting began Thursday evening, according to Israeli media, and was expected to stretch into the night.
Expanding military operations would further isolate Israel internationally, after several of its closest Western allies have called on it to end the war and facilitate more humanitarian aid. In Israel, families of the hostages have called for mass protests Thursday, fearing an escalation could doom their loved ones.
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, pleading with the international community to put pressure on the prime minister to stop the war and save his son.
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.
