A majority of Israeli ministers backed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s proposal on further actions in the Gaza Strip. According to the prime minister’s office, the initiative contains five principles for ending the war.
“The Israel Defense Forces will prepare to take control of Gaza City while providing humanitarian assistance to civilians outside the combat zone,” the Israeli prime minister’s office said.
According to the report, Israeli forces already control about 75% of the enclave. At the same time, Netanyahu’s proposal exposed clear divisions inside the country. Each element of the plan was put to a separate vote.
In particular, ministers and Netanyahu’s far-right coalition allies Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir opposed the clause allowing large-scale humanitarian aid. Smotrich said he saw the decision as more of a high-profile declaration than a genuine plan to occupy the territory.
“This is not an operation to seize the Gaza Strip, establish full military control over the territory, and achieve a decisive outcome — the only way to secure victory, long-term security, and the return of the hostages — but a specific and dangerous operation whose only purpose is to bring Hamas back to the negotiating table,” his statement said.
IDF Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir also opposed the decision on occupation. Earlier, he had presented the political leadership with two options for expanding the operation: conquering the entire enclave or surrounding the strip and carrying out regular targeted raids intended to wear down Hamas.
The article says Zamir tried to persuade Netanyahu to adopt a more restrained war plan. He argued that the military could not guarantee the safety of hostages if fighting took place in the areas where they were being held, and he also stressed that Israeli forces had been exhausted by nearly two years of war.