TEL AVIV — The Israeli army has said its planned expanded offensive in Gaza, approved by the country’s security cabinet, included “moving most of the population” of the Palestinian territory.
“The operation will include a broad attack, including moving most of the population of the Gaza Strip. This is in order to protect them in a sterile area away from Hamas,” army spokesman Brigadier General Effie Defrin said, reports AFP.
The Israeli prime minister has released a new Hebrew-language video message on X, addressing the cabinet-approved plan to expand the Gaza offensive, Al Jazeera reports.
According to translated excerpts reported by Reuters, Netanyahu said Gaza’s Palestinian population “will be moved, for its own protection”.
Netanyahu also said Israeli soldiers would not go into Gaza, launch raids and then retreat. “The intention is the opposite of that,” he said.
The decision, Netanyahu said, was approved on the recommendation of Israel’s new military chief of staff Eyal Zamir. “He believes this will also help us rescue the hostages. I agree with him,” said the Israeli PM. “We are not letting up on this effort and will not give up on anyone.”
The Israeli leader also said a “committee of inquiry” probing failures leading up to the October 7, 2023 attack should not be established until “after the war ends”.
“Afterward, we will examine this and we need to investigate the political echelon from the prime minister down. I demand this,” said Netanyahu.
‘Alarmed’ by Israel’s expanded military plan: UN chief
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is “alarmed” by Israeli plans to expand military operations in Gaza and seek the “conquest” of the territory, AFP reports quoting a spokesman.
“This will inevitably lead to countless more civilians killed and the further destruction of Gaza,” said Farhan Haq, adding: “Gaza is, and must remain, an integral part of a future Palestinian state.”
Norwegian NGO decries Israel plan to take over Gaza aid
An Israeli plan to take over the distribution of humanitarian aid to Gaza at hubs controlled by the military is “fundamentally against humanitarian principles”, the head of the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) has told AFP.
Israel’s security cabinet said there was “currently enough food” in the territory, which has been under full Israeli blockade since March 2, and approved overnight the “possibility of humanitarian distribution” in Gaza.
“We cannot and will not do something which is fundamentally against humanitarian principles,” Jan Egeland told AFP.
He said, “The United Nations agencies, all other international humanitarian groups and NGOs have said no to be part of this idea coming from the Israeli cabinet and from the Israeli military.”
Egeland said the Israeli government wanted to “militarise, manipulate, politicise the aid by allowing only aid to a few concentration hubs in the south, a scheme where people will be screened, where it’s a completely inoperable system”.
“That would force people to move to get aid, and it would continue the starvation of the civilian population,” he said, adding: “We will have no part in that.”
“If one side in a bitter armed conflict tries to control, manipulate, ration aid among the civilians on the other side, it is against everything we stand for,” he stressed.
Meanwhile, the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said the Israeli scheme “will mean large parts of Gaza, including the less mobile and most vulnerable people, will continue to go without supplies”.
Netanyahu dragging US into ‘disaster’ in region: Iran
Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of attempting to drag the United States into “disaster” in the Middle East, warning against any attempt to attack Iran, AFP reports.
“Netanyahu is directly meddling within the US Government to drag it into another disaster in our region,” Araghchi said on X, warning against “any mistake against Iran”.
Araghchi also accused Netanyahu of “attempting to brazenly dictate what [US] President Trump can and cannot do in his diplomacy with Iran”.
Iran’s top diplomat cited the United States’ support for Israel in its conflict in Gaza against Hamas since the group’s unprecedented October 2023 attack
Israel’s method of warfare in Gaza is ‘starvation’: rights group
Israeli human rights group B’Tselem has accused Israel of “using starvation as a method of warfare” in Gaza.
In a post on social media accompanying video footage of hungry Palestinians trying desperately to get food at a charity kitchen, the rights group said that more than 2 million people in Gaza have been starved for about two months in Gaza.
Half of those being starved by Israel are children, the prominent rights group said.
“Israel is using starvation as a war tactic,” it added.
Gaza facing ‘extreme risk of famine’: Palestine Red Crescent
The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) says the nutritional situation in Gaza is now “even more dire than in the past 19 months”, with essential food supplies having “run out in both markets and distribution centres”, Al Jazeera reports.
“The nutritional front, the population is facing once again at extreme risk of famine”, the PRCS said in its latest situation update.
“There is an inability to meet even the minimum daily needs of over a million displaced people,” it said.
The Red Crescent’s food stocks allocated for displaced people are now “completely depleted”, with “limited quantities of legumes” being “distributed to community kitchens to cover some of the basic needs of displaced individuals”.
Palestinian children queue for a portion of hot food distributed by a charity kitchen at the Nuseirat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip on May 5. — Agencies
