On Monday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel said that his country is “On the eve of a strong entrance to Gaza” after his security cabinet has approved a new plan for tens of thousands of additional soldiers to take over and hold the territory in the upcoming enclave and transfer the Palestinians to the south.
In video published on social media while military reservists in Israel began to receive notices of their call, Netanyahu said that the country's best military officials had recommended what he called an 18 -month -old “intensive” escalation.
“It's time to launch the final moves,” said Netanyahu, the military officials told him, adding that the new campaign would help bring home the hostages still held in Gaza. The prime minister said he believes “We are not finished. We are before the finish line”.
The escalation followed more than two months in which Israel continued to block and bomb the Gaza strip while the interviews of ceased the fire to free the remaining hostages almost stopped. Israel has forbidden any humanitarian aid to Gaza in an attempt to press Hamas to surrender, leading groups of help to denounce a growing deprivation among the Palestinians there.
Mr. Netanyhu's opponents quickly criticized the expanded military campaign, saying that he would endanger the lives of the remaining hostages and would not have substantially changed the dynamics that 18 months of war made. The critics of the Prime Minister – both inside and outside the country – urged him to end a conflict that began when Hamas killed about 1,200 people in Israel on October 7, 2023 and took about 250 hostages.
Israeli officials have said that the offensive would slowly begin in anticipation of the negotiations of ceased the fire that are underway before the trip of President Trump next week in the region for meetings in different Arab capital. But the officials said that if an agreement is not reached soon, the expanded land operation would start seriously.
Netanyahu promised in the video that the decision to increase the fighting to Gaza does not mean that Israel has abandoned the hope of saving the remaining hostages.
“We will not give up anyone,” he sworn.
David Mencer, a government spokesman, described the plan as a renewed effort to increase pressure on Hamas to release hostages and destroy all Hamas infrastructures, both above and below. He said that the campaign requires the “detention of territories” by Israeli soldiers for an indefinite period of time “to prevent Hamas from resuming it”.
Mencer said that the intent was not a permanent occupation of Gaza, a scenario that would almost certainly stimulate international objections, as well as the forced transfer of the Palestinians from their homes in the north.
Effie Defin, the Israeli military spokesman, declared in a television declaration that the Israel operation will include “a large attack, which implies the movement of most of the population of Gaza. This is for their protection in a clean area of Hamas”.
At the White House, Brian Hughes, spokesman for the National Security Council, did not comment directly from the Israeli announcement, but said Trump “remains committed to guaranteeing the immediate release of hostages and the end of the Hamas rule in Gaza”. He added: “Hamas has the sole responsibility for this conflict and for the resumption of hostility”.
But it was not clear how much of the announcement was mainly designed as a public display of action by Mr. Netanyahu after a ceased the fire collapsed in March. The Israeli call of soldiers is seen as a message to the supporters of the hard line of Mr. Netanyahu, some of whom were dismayed that the military had not completed the task of uprising Hamas. Promising a more intense phase of the war could be a good internal policy for him.
Furthermore, it is not obvious that further fighters would basically change a dynamic seen over 18 months of war in which hundreds of thousands of soldiers hit Hamas' fighters, with the residents of Gaza captured in the middle, but have not achieved Israel's goals to destroy the militant group or release all the hostages.
As part of the Israeli offensive, Israel would move “Gazan's population to the south for his defense”, said Mencer. The plan echoed Israel's actions at the beginning of the war, when Israel ordered a mass evacuation of northern Gaza before its invasion on the ground at the end of 2023.
An Israeli official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss operational planning, said that understanding was that the Israeli military would have moved to capture more territory in addition to what already in possession, but the official warned that it was not clear if Israel had planned to occupy everything Gaza at this point.
The cabinet has also approved a new mechanism supported by Israelia to allow the distribution of humanitarian aid, he said. Israel has been criticized for his decision more than two months ago to block all humanitarian aid, including food, medicine and fuel, whose effect was “catastrophic”, say the doctors. Israel claimed that the blocking of aid is lawful and that Gaza still has quite available provisions.
Two reservists who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to make comments to the media said they had received call orders starting from June.
Eli Cohen, Minister of Energy Israel and member of the Security Cabinet, said that the reservists have been recalled to implement a plan that would guarantee that Hamas can never launch attacks against Israel again.
“The destruction of the terrorist organization Hamas is not only an Israeli interest, but also an interest in the whole free world,” he added, adding that “the cabinet has decided unanimously to expand the operation to Gaza and move now towards the defeat of Hamas”.
The question is whether a return to that type of combat is a road map at the end of hostilities or simply an intensification of a fatal conflict with a worsening of the consequences for the Palestinians and Israeli hostages still held by Hamas.
Tamir Hayman, who was the head of the Israeli army intelligence for four years, said that attempts to pressing Hamas with an overwhelming force were “exhausted” after more than a year and a half of war.
“Eliminating Hamas as a terrorist organization only by military force is very difficult,” said Hayman, who is now executive director of the Institute for National Security Studies, a Think Tank in Tel Aviv. He said that Israel would be better to end the war with Hamas, which has been weakened significantly and can be kept under control after the end of the fighting.
The Israeli army did not provide details on how reservists will be deployed. But two Israeli officials, who have asked the anonymity to comment on the military plans, say that they will involve several brigades that seek the so -called operational superiority in different parts of Gaza.
The Trump administration looked for a new ceased the fire, but Hamas asked for the end of the war and a retreat of the Israeli forces from Gaza, while Israel insisted on the fact that Hamas disarmed, which the group refused to do.
Israeli officials declared that they believed that it was the power and intensity of their military campaign in Gaza last year that put pressure on Hamas who released some hostages and to accept a ceasefire in January.
Hours after the attacks of October 2023, Netanyahu ordered the mobilization of 360,000 reservists, adding to the permanent military of the country of about 170,000 soldiers.
In the fights since then, over 50,000 Palestinians have died, according to the Ministry of Health of Gaza, which does not distinguish between civil and military deaths. About 130 hostages were released and Israeli military recovered the bodies of at least another 40. It is believed that about 24 hostages are still alive, according to the Israeli government.
Awad Abid, a 38 -year -old resident of Jabaliya in the north of Gaza, said that Israeli announcements brought further desperation among the Palestinian residents of the Encyclist. The blocking of months on the humanitarian had caused “hunger to enter every house,” he said.
“There is no longer life here for anyone in Gaza,” said Abid, adding that Israeli hostages should be released immediately to end the conflict.
When Israel and Hamas agreed for the January fire agreement, Netanyahu said that the credit should go to the “painful shots that our heroic fighters landed on Hamas”.
“This is exactly the way the conditions were created for the turning point in its position and for the release of our hostages,” he said during a national address.
But other voices, such as Yair Lapid, the leader of the opposition of Israel, have expressed serious doubts about the strategy. “I'm afraid that the intensity of the fighting will take the fate of the hostages,” Lapid said on the radio of the Israeli army. “What is the goal? Why do they call reservists? Extending the regular service and everything without defining a goal – that's not how a war win.”
In a Monday declaration, the organization that represents the families of the hostages urged the government not to expand the war.
“The expansion of military operations puts every hostage at risk,” the families said. “We implore our decision -makers: give priority to the hostages. Ensure an agreement. Portals at home – before it's too late.”
Natan Odenheimer, Johnatan Reiss AND Gabby Sobelman Contributed relationships.