Netanyahu will summon the security cabinet after a three -hour meeting this week with the Army Chief, that Israeli officials described as tense, saying that the military chief had rejected expand the campaign.
Opinion surveys show that most Israelis want war to end an agreement that allows the liberation of the remaining hostages. The Netanyahu government has insisted on a total victory over the Palestinian militant group Hamás, which triggered war with its deadly attack against Israel in October 2023.
The idea that Israeli forces advance towards areas that no longer control in the shattered Palestinian enclave has generated alarm in Israel. On Thursday, the mother of a hostage urged people to go outside to express their opposition to the expansion of the campaign. “Someone who speaks of a global agreement does not go and conquer the strip and endangers hostages and soldiers,” wrote Einav Zangauker in X in comments addressed to Netyahu.
The Hostage Families Forum, which represents the captives retained in Gaza, urged the head of the military General Eyal Zamir to oppose the expansion of the war and asked the Government to accept an agreement that ends the war and releases the remaining hostages. The Minister of Defense, Israel Katz, declared on Wednesday that the army would execute the decisions of the government until all the objectives of the war would be achieved. Israeli leaders have been insisting that Hamas disarms and does not participate in the future in a demilitarized gaza, and in which the hostages are released.
The UN has described as “deeply alarming” if the reports on a possible expansion of Israel’s military operations in Gaza were certain. The majority of those released so far were achieved through diplomatic negotiations. The conversations for a high fire that could have released some hostages failed in July. And what they can drag is still well below the necessary levels to keep the healthy people published last week of two living hostages show them emaciated and fragile, which caused international condemnation.
Hamas, who has governed Gaza for almost two decades but now only controls parts of the territory, insists that any agreement must lead to a permanent purpose of the war, while Israel accuses the group of lack of sincerity about giving up power later.
The Israeli army claims to control approximately 75% of Gaza. Most of the population of Gaza, of approximately two million inhabitants, has been displaced several times in the last 22 months, and the humanitarian organizations warn that the residents of the enclave are on the edge of the famine.
About 200 Palestinians have died of hunger in Gaza since the war began, almost half of them were children, according to the Ministry of Health of Gaza. Rabeeha Jamal, 65, and mother of six children, has remained at home in Gaza despite the previous warnings of the Israeli army to leave. For now, he said he intends to stay. “Not until they force us if the tanks arrive; if not, I will not run to the street to kill me later,” he said, asking for the end of the war. “We don’t have to go.”
Netanyahu is under intense international pressure to reach a high fire agreement, but also faces internal pressure within its coalition to continue the war. Some extreme right allies in their government have pressed for the total occupation of Gaza and for Israel to restore settlements there, two decades after their withdrawal. The Minister of Finance of the extreme right, Bezalel Smotrich, told journalists on Wednesday that he expected the government to approve that the military would take control of the rest of Gaza.
Approximately 1,200 people died and 251 were taken to Gaza in the Hamas attack of October 7, 2023 against communities in southern Israel. 61,000 Palestinians have died from Israel’s attacks against Gaza, according to Gaza’s health officials, who said at least 20 people had died in air attacks throughout the territory on Thursday.
Source: Ambito
