Israel announces plan to take over Gaza City in another escalation of the war

Israel’s Security Cabinet approved a proposal early Friday for the military to expand the war in Gaza and take control of Gaza City, one of the last areas of the territory not yet under full military occupation.

The Security Cabinet’s meeting ran well into the night in Israel, concluding with an outline for the military to eventually control all of the territory.

The announcement from the prime minister’s office comes some 23 months into a war in which Israeli airstrikes and attacks have killed at least 61,000 Palestinians, a third of them children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.

Gaza City — long the beating heart of Gaza — has been largely destroyed from airstrikes and raids throughout the war. Still, it’s home to several of the territory’s last partially-functioning hospitals, a church where Gaza’s minority Christians are sheltering and where tens of thousands of displaced people have set up tent encampments.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office stopped short of describing the takeover of Gaza City as an occupation, though the U.N. says already nearly 90% of Gaza is under military control or off-limits to Palestinians and deemed a red zone. Gaza City, parts of central Gaza and a stretch of sand along the sea are the only areas not yet occupied by Israeli ground forces.

Israeli troops already operate in eastern Gaza City under cover of near-constant airstrikes. It’s unclear how the military plans to push further into densely populated areas — or where people might be forced to flee amid what U.N.-backed experts on hunger say is an unfolding famine in the territory.

In announcing the decision, Netanyahu’s office said that aid would be distributed to civilians outside of combat zones, without elaborating.

Families of Israeli hostages still held by militants in Gaza are demanding a ceasefire, fearing military operations could lead to their deaths.

Einav Zangauker, whose son Matan is being held hostage, said this week Netanyahu had promised her he would strike a deal to end the war and free the hostages.

“But he exploited my pain, the pain of the families of this wounded nation — he sabotaged the deal,” she said. “He lied to me — he lied to all of us!”

Public opinion in Israel is divided over whether to end the war, but this week tens of thousands of Israelis protested in Tel Aviv for a ceasefire. Additionally, hundreds of former generals and security officials in Israel signed an open letter to President Trump, urging him to bring an end to the war and end the suffering. They said Hamas no longer poses a strategic threat to Israel after the group’s deadly attack on Oct. 7, 2023.

Netanyahu, however, has also resisted mounting global pressure to end the war and dramatically boost aid into Gaza.

When asked this week about possible Israeli plans to militarily occupy all of Gaza, Trump said the decision was “pretty much up to Israel.”

The Security Cabinet, comprised of Israel’s top leaders, adopted five aims before Israel ends the war: the disarmament of Hamas, the release of all roughly 50 hostages — less than half of whom are believed to be alive — demilitarizing Gaza, Israeli security control in Gaza and establishing a civil administration that is neither Hamas or the Palestinian Authority.

The Security Cabinet’s statement did not give any details on what Israeli security control in Gaza would need to look like for Israel to end the war, nor how a civil administration would be formed, what its role would be and who would run it.

The prime minister’s office said an alternative plan for military operations in Gaza than the one Netanyahu had presented had been rejected by the Security Cabinet, which includes two far-right ministers who’ve openly called for the permanent expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza and the rebuilding of Jewish settlements there.