Israel to ‘take control’ of Gaza City

JERUSALEM (AFP) — Israel’s military will “take control” of Gaza City under a plan proposed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and approved by his security cabinet, his office said in a statement Friday.

Nearly two years into the war in Gaza, Netanyahu faces mounting pressure at home and abroad for 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.

Under the plan to “defeat” Hamas in the Gaza Strip, 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.

Before the decision, Netanyahu said Israel planned to take full control of Gaza but did not intend to govern it.

He told US network Fox News on Thursday that the military would seize complete control of the Gaza Strip, noting that Israel did not want “to keep” the territory, which it occupied in 1967 but withdrew troops and settlers from in 2005.

Netanyahu said Israel wanted a “security perimeter” and to hand the Palestinian territory to “Arab forces that will govern it properly without threatening us.”

“That’s not possible with Hamas,” he added.

His office on Friday said a majority of the security cabinet had adopted “five principles,” including demilitarization of the territory and “the establishment of an alternative civil administration that is neither Hamas nor the Palestinian Authority.”

The plan drew criticism from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who said it was “wrong” and “will only bring more bloodshed.”

“This action will do nothing to bring an end to this conflict or to help secure the release of the hostages,” said Starmer, who has threatened to recognize a Palestinian state.