Israel plans to ‘take control’ of Gaza City, triggers global backlash
Palestinians watch as a plume of smoke rises during an Israeli strike on Gaza City’s southern al-Zeitoun neighbourhood on August 8, 2025. — AFP pic
Saturday, 09 Aug 2025 8:42 AM MYT
JERUSALEM, Aug 9 — Israel’s military will “take control” of Gaza City under a new plan approved by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s security cabinet, touching off a wave of criticism yesterday from both inside and outside the country.
Nearly two years into the war in Gaza, Netanyahu faces mounting pressure to secure a truce to pull the territory’s more than two million people back from the brink of famine and free the hostages held by Palestinian militants.
Israel’s foe Hamas, whose October 7, 2023 attack triggered the war, denounced the plan to expand the fighting as a “new war crime”.
Staunch Israeli ally Germany meanwhile took the extraordinary step of halting military exports out of concern they could be used in Gaza, a move Netanyahu slammed as a reward for Hamas.
Under the newly approved plan to “defeat” Hamas, the Israeli army “will prepare to take control of Gaza City while distributing humanitarian assistance to the civilian population outside combat zones”, the premier’s office said yseterday.
Netanyahu in a post on X said “we are not going to occupy Gaza — we are going to free Gaza from Hamas”.
He said that the territory’s demilitarisation and the establishment of “a peaceful civilian administration... will help free our hostages” and prevent future threats.
Israel occupied Gaza from 1967, but withdrew its troops and settlers in 2005.
Netanyahu’s office said the cabinet had adopted “five principles”, including Gaza’s demilitarisation and “the establishment of an alternative civil administration that is neither Hamas nor the Palestinian Authority”.
The plan triggered swift criticism from across the globe, with China, Turkey, Britain and numerous Arab governments issuing statements of concern.
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called the Israeli plan a “dangerous escalation” that risks “deepening the already catastrophic consequences for millions of Palestinians”.
Diplomatic sources told AFP that the UN Security Council will meet tomorrow to discuss the plan.
‘March of recklessness’
Announcing the suspension of military shipments to Israel, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said it was “increasingly difficult to understand” how the new plan would help achieve legitimate aims.
In Israel, there were mixed reactions to the cabinet’s decision, while Defence Minister Israel Katz said the military had already begun preparing for its implementation.
The main campaign group for hostages’ families also slammed the plan, saying it amounted to “abandoning” the captives.
“The cabinet chose last night to embark on another march of recklessness, on the backs of the hostages, the soldiers, and Israeli society as a whole,” the Hostage and Missing Families Forum said.
Out of 251 hostages captured during Hamas’s 2023 attack, 49 are still being held in Gaza, including 27 the military says are dead.
An expanded Israeli offensive could see ground troops operate in densely populated areas where hostages are believed to be held, local media have reported.
Some Israelis, meanwhile, offered their support.
“As they take control of Gaza, they will eliminate Hamas completely — maybe not completely, but at least a good percentage of them,” said Chaim Klein, a 26-year-old yeshiva student.
The Israeli army said last month that it controlled 75 per cent of the Gaza Strip.
‘We are human beings’
Gaza residents said they feared further displacement and attacks as they braced for the next onslaught.
“They tell us to go south, then back north, and now they want to send us south again. We are human beings, but no one hears us or sees us,” Maysa al-Shanti, a 52-year-old mother of six, told AFP.
Hamas yesterday said the “plans to occupy Gaza City and evacuate its residents constitutes a new war crime”.
It warned Israel that the operation would “cost it dearly”, and that “expanding the aggression means sacrificing” the hostages held by militants.
International concern has been growing over the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza, where a UN-backed assessment has warned that famine is unfolding.
The World Health Organisation said at least 99 people have died from malnutrition in the territory this year, with the figure likely an underestimate.
Gaza’s civil defence agency said a 19-year-old was seriously injured during the delivery of aid by an airdrop over Gaza City.
“There are daily injuries and fatalities caused by the heavy parcels falling on people’s heads in densely populated areas,” said civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal, adding that stampedes and overcrowding at aid drop sites frequently lead to casualties.
Bassal said Israeli strikes across Gaza yesterday killed at least 16 people.
Israel in recent months has eased some restrictions on aid entering Gaza, but the United Nations says the amount allowed into the territory remains insufficient.
Israel’s offensive has killed over 61,000 Palestinians, according to Hamas-run Gaza’s health ministry.
The 2023 attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, according to an AFP tally based on official figures. — AFP
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Israel needs to ensure the complete defeat of Hamas, otherwise there will be another October 7 massacre five years down the road.
ReplyDeleteThen the whole Israeli Genocide disinformation industry will reboot for another round.
Wakakakaka…
DeleteHow to ensure the complete defeat of Hamas when Hamas is an idea constantly been mold by the atrocities enacted daily by the zionist state?
Fire-fighters don’t put out 90%, 95% or even 100% of the fire. Even after the fire is out they soak the embers to ensure there will not be another outbreak. Harm-ass needs to be eradicated 110%.
ReplyDeleteNever Again.
Hence the unmentioned Gaza genocide choreographed by thezionist state!
DeleteHappy Shabbat, Shalom....
ReplyDeleteMy fren Oren the Isaac Tour Guide lived in Berlin for 10 years and is married to a German so I think he is qualified to comment on this. A little long but worth watching, entitled:
"Why the Germans (& Europeans) don't understand the Arab-Israeli conflict"
https://youtu.be/oGDhBY4V_CI?feature=shared
In a simple word, mostly the current generation of the German is been meme-ed into holocaust guilty feeling via well choreographed zionist his-story twisting.
DeleteThey r paying with their guilt for the sins their elders had committed. Yet most of them have NO naturalised feeling about these guilts that those mferong zionists r exercisong now in Gaza
There was only ONE World War, with a 20 year "ceasefire" or "armistice" (1919-1939).
ReplyDeleteMany Germans never accepted defeat in 1919. In fact, the fighting was still going on in France; Germany had not lost any territory at all. So Germans didn't understand why their military leaders gave up. They blamed the "surrender" on their leaders and (as usual) the Isaacs.
The US General Pershing was against the armistice and predicted it would lead to another war, and he was right.....20 years later.
In WW2 the allies understood the Germans hadn't learnt the Lesson in WW1. So in WW2 the Germans had to be TAUGHT a lesson. One they won't forget, at least not for a long long time.
If the Americans had stopped their advance at the Rhine River and invited Hitler over for tea and cookies or the Soviets at the Polish border then headed home to Moscow, the Nazis would have continued their war. Berlin had to be turned to rubble before the Nazis accepted who was the winner and who the loser.
The World is Not Listening to (or Understanding) Harm-ass, just engaging in wishful thinking.
Here is The Covenant of Harm-ass, dated August 1988.https://www.wilsoncenter.org/article/doctrine-hamas
https://irp.fas.org/world/para/docs/880818a.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamas_Charter
The preamble reads:
"Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it."
Their covenant mentions the word "Islam" 136 times, the words "Palestinian state" aren't mentioned at all. The word "death" four times.
So should Netanyahu invite Harm-ass over for tea and smoke a shisha? If we give them another state (the 22nd Arab one) do you think the killing of Isaacs will stop and they tear up their covenant?
Any ceasefire in Gaza will only result in the next Oct 7.
Yet, no questions about WHY
DeleteThe preamble reads:
"Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it."
Unmentionable, since the answer lies deep with the heinous & insidious theme of zionism!
W/O kicking the zionist state completely out from the land of Levant, peace would be an alien concept there!
Ooop… if the yankeeland won't accepting the whole of zionist state, then Ukraine would be the next possible location for this zionist state to exist within its 'supporters'.
Your assumption that there will be peace in when Isaacs are completely out is naive, shallow and totally wrong.
DeleteThere was fighting and killing of minorities and Ishmaels by other Ishmaels and this will continue to take place without any Isaac involvement or presence.
The civil war in Lebanon and Syria originally had no Isaac involvement. Millions of Ishmaels and Christian Maronites, Druze etc were killed or ran away because of ISIS etc.
In Yemen hundreds of thousands of Ishmaels have died due to civil war, again no involvement of Isaacs.
ISIS killed thousands of Christians, Yazidis and other minorities in Iraq; no Isaacs involved.
Iran - Iraq war in the 80s - Khomeini vs Saddam Hussein - half a million Ishmaels died in this long war. There was No Isaac involvement.
I know you will spin Isaac involvements in all of these. Please go ahead. Educate us all.
There was fighting & killing of minorities & others by whosoever in a war.
DeleteThat's war mah!
It's the worst of the human behavior - not that the exclusive god chosen people WOULD ever avoided.
Civil wars in Lebanon & Syria, Yemen & Iran - Iraq war were wars just the same as the mfering zionist war in Gaza!
Faith isn't the issue. Neither is race. Yet u have mfering turning all this as intra faith massacres via yr use of the Issac term!
& indeed, this will continue to take place within the zionists state too, w or w/o involvement or presence of the Arabs when the time comes!
Now back to Yes, those mfering zionists r involved!
Haven't u understand a human behaviorism known as catfish phenomenon?
When a catfish is been introduced into a pond full of carps, a fiercely competition happens. The carps have to fight amongst themselves to survive a foreign predator catfish, even though the catfish might seem minding its own business in a strange land.
So, mfer, long story short. The introduction of those Europe rejected zionists into the land of Levant IS the cause of the untold miseries in ME. Most of the time due to their geoplitical manipulative & incessant land grabbing to expand that tiny dot of land given by the pommie declaration earlier!