Israel plans to expand war and occupy more of Gaza

Israel approves plan to expand Gaza war, including ‘occupation’ of territory

The Washington Post

May 5, 2025

By Lior Soroka, Annabelle Timsit, Gerry Shih, Alon Rom and Claire Parker

Israeli soldiers survey the destroyed building of central Gaza along the border with Israel in April. (Heidi Levine/For The Washington Post)

TEL AVIV — The Israeli government has approved a plan to expand military operations in the Gaza Strip, which would include the occupation of the territory, Israeli officials said Monday.

Israel’s security cabinet unanimously approved the new Gaza war plan at a meeting Sunday night, David Mencer, a spokesman for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, told reporters Monday.

During the meeting, Netanyahu “emphasized that the plan differs from previous ones by shifting from raid-based operations to the occupation of territory and sustaining it,” another Israeli official said Monday, speaking on the condition of anonymity to describe sensitive discussions.

The Israel Defense Forces’ chief of staff, who presented the plan to the security cabinet, said it would allow for stronger strikes against Hamas and help bring home the hostages who remain in the territory, the official said.

Israel ended its two-month ceasefire with Hamas and resumed attacks on Gaza on March 18. Since then, the Israeli military has dramatically altered the map of the enclave, declaring about 70 percent of it either a military “red zone” or under evacuation orders, by a U.N. assessment, and pushing hundreds of thousands of Palestinians into ever-shrinking pockets.

The expanded operations involve seizing and occupying more territory in Gaza, which will require more ground troops, a former Israeli military official with knowledge of the plans, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal planning, said ahead of the cabinet vote. Israel plans to mobilize tens of thousands of reservists.

The plans stop short of the complete military occupation of Gaza that the IDF has weighed, the former official said. Implementing such an occupation is considered difficult, but not impossible, given the staffing levels required, they said.

Mencer, the prime minister’s spokesman, described the war objectives approved overnight as “the expanding and the holding of territories, not occupation,” in a news briefing Monday. He did not answer a question about whether this “holding of territories” would be permanent.

He also said Israel intends to move Gaza’s civilian population southward “for its own defense,” without giving further details. Forced displacement is a crime under international law.

The Israel Defense Forces also plans to mobilize tens of thousands of reservists. “We are issuing tens of thousands of reserve call-up orders to intensify and expand the operation in Gaza — increasing the pressure with the goal of bringing our people home and defeating Hamas,” Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, the IDF chief of staff, said in a speech Sunday at a naval commando base.

“We will operate in additional areas and destroy all infrastructure — above and below ground.”

Netanyahu’s security cabinet also ratified on Sunday a plan to overhaul the distribution of food within Gaza, on the condition that Hamas cannot access the supplies. As The Washington Post previously reported, the plan involves Israel taking control of — and sharply reducing — the distribution of lifesaving aid inside the territory.

Israel would establish up to six hubs at which humanitarian workers would hand packages of food and supplies directly to vetted civilian families while private U.S. contractors provided security.

International aid groups say that the plan violates their rules on impartiality in aid distribution and that the presence of armed people could lead to outbreaks of violence at the distribution zones.

Far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir was the sole dissenter against the aid distribution plan at the Sunday meeting, a person with knowledge of the discussion said. Ben Gvir said he did not understand why Israel had to provide humanitarian aid, arguing there was “enough food” in the enclave, said the person, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe sensitive conversations.

Since Israel broke its ceasefire with Hamas, IDF operations have killed more than 2,400 Palestinians and injured more than 6,400, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.

Hamas-led fighters streamed out of Gaza on Oct. 7, 2023, to attack communities in southern Israel. They killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and took another 250 back to the enclave as hostages.

Israel responded with a military campaign aimed at eradicating Hamas. Since the October 2023 attack, it has killed more than 52,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants but says the majority of the dead are women and children.

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said in March that he had instructed the IDF to seize Palestinian territory permanently if the hostages were not released. He did not provide details or a time frame.

“I have instructed the IDF to seize additional territory in Gaza, while evacuating the population, and to expand the security zones around Gaza to better protect Israeli communities and IDF soldiers,” Katz said in a statement then. “The more Hamas refuses to release the hostages, the more territory it will lose — territory that will be annexed to Israel.”

“We will intensify the fighting with blows from the air, sea, and land, and by expanding the ground maneuver, until the hostages are freed and Hamas is defeated,” he said.

Timsit reported from London; Shih and Parker reported from Jerusalem.

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