Israeli gov’t orders IDF to ‘take control’ of entire Gaza Strip to disarm Hamas & return hostages

PM Netanyahu: ‘We don’t want to keep the strip or govern there’

By Kremlin.ru, CC BY 4.0, Wikipedia

The Israeli Security Cabinet ordered the Israel Defense Forces to take control of the entire Gaza Strip, approving a plan supported by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu despite significant concerns from the military top leadership.

The plan was approved after a Cabinet meeting late on Thursday evening, which was accompanied by protests led by hostage families, who warned that expanding the fighting into areas where the remaining captives are held could put their lives at risk.

The Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) called the plan a “proposal for defeating Hamas” in an official statement published on Friday morning. The PMO listed five “principles for concluding the war.”

1. The disarming of Hamas.

2. The return of all the hostages – both living and deceased.

3. The demilitarization of the Gaza Strip.

4. Israeli security control in the Gaza Strip.

5. The establishment of an alternative civil administration to govern Gaza that is neither Hamas nor the Palestinian Authority.

Notably, the statement did not use the terms “conquer” or “occupy,” instead stating that the IDF would “prepare for taking control of Gaza City while distributing humanitarian assistance to the civilian population outside the combat zones.”

The Israeli army is currently holding around 75% of the Gaza Strip, except Gaza City and the so-called “central camps” area south of the city.

This follows an announcement by Israel’s U.S. Ambassador, Mike Huckabee, that the United States will take a leading role in humanitarian efforts and massively ramp up the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation’s (GHF) aid distribution operations.

According to Israeli media, Israel will give Gaza City’s civilian population a deadline until Oct. 7 to evacuate, before the military will encircle and besiege the remaining Hamas fighters in the city.

This would effectively, once again, present Hamas with an ultimatum to agree to a ceasefire deal or face the takeover of the rest of the enclave.

An Israeli official told CNN that around one million Palestinians will be relocated to the southern part of the Gaza Strip, where new compounds will be established to shelter the refugees.

The Cabinet meeting was preceded by days-long discussions, both in public and behind closed doors, as IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Eyal Zamir and several ministers allegedly expressed opposition to taking over the enclave, and instead advocated for a prolonged siege.

However, the PMO noted that “a decisive majority of Security Cabinet ministers believed that the alternative plan that had been submitted to the Security Cabinet would neither achieve the defeat of Hamas nor the return of the hostages.”

Speaking to Fox News ahead of the Cabinet meeting, Netanyahu stressed that Israel doesn’t “want to keep it. We want to have a security perimeter, and we don’t want to govern it. We want to give it to Arab forces that will govern it properly and not threaten us.”

The internal disputes continued during the meeting on Thursday, Channel 12 reported, citing several quotes from the discussion.

“There is no humanitarian response for the million people moving [in Gaza],” Zamir reportedly warned. He was also said to have counseled to “remove the return of the hostages from the war objectives,” as the plan would put them in danger.

“We all care about the hostages, but also about the soldiers. Learn from the police how to follow the decisions of the political echelon,” National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir retorted.

Minister Ze’ev Elkin compared the army’s alternative plan for ending the fighting to “security enforcement, like we do in Judea and Samaria. It’s not war.”

On Friday morning, NBC reported that commercially available satellite photos showed the IDF concentrating troops and equipment near the Gaza border, indicating that the start of the new operation may be imminent.

August 8, 2025 | 6 Comments »

Leave a Reply

6 Comments / 6 Comments

  1. I think Avi Abelow just nailed it on FB:

    For many of us who have supported this war effort from day one, it’s been agonizing to watch the slow, cautious steps taken by Israel’s leadership in Gaza. We’ve seen the terror tunnels, the barbarity of October 7th, and the endless cycle of ceasefire deals exploited by Hamas to regroup, rearm and boobytrap areas/homes we previously cleared. And we’ve asked ourselves again and again: why haven’t we just gone in and finished the job?

    Today, Prime Minister Netanyahu made the decision that many of us have long waited for: a full-scale operation to liberate and take permanent control of all of Gaza. Not just a military campaign, not just a dismantling of terror cells, but a bold declaration that Israel will no longer tolerate a hostile Iranian/Qatari backed enclave on its border. This is the only strategic, moral, and secure path forward.

    So why now? Why not earlier?

    It’s not that Netanyahu fails to grasp the necessity of the war. Rather, he is making a deliberate effort to weigh something often lost in the fog of conflict: our greatest strength lies in unity. Without it, we risk losing the war in Gaza, and weakening the soul of our people. The war is just and must be fought, but Netanyahu is striving to preserve as much unity as he can along the way.

    From the beginning, Netanyahu has been playing a multidimensional game. On one side, there is the very real and painful hostage crisis, something the political left has cynically weaponized to try andundermine the war effort. They frame every military action as a betrayal of the hostages, even as it was Hamas that took them and Hamas that hides behind them. Their strategy is clear: turn public opinion against the war and the Netanyahu government by exploiting our greatest pain.

    Netanyahu understands this trap. That’s why, even when it delayed the military timetable, he continuously keeps the door open to hostage negotiations, not because he thought Hamas could be trusted, but because he knew that if the government appeared indifferent to the fate of the hostages, it would fracture the nation and tank support for the necessary war effort.

    Yes, the delays have had a cost, international pressure has grown, even within Republican circles in the U.S., who until recently stood firmly behind Israel. But Netanyahu has made the hard calculation: internal cohesion trumps external approval. We must stay united long enough to see this war through to its rightful end, a Gaza fully under Israeli control, demilitarized, and no longer a launching pad for jihad.

    The world will scream. The media will distort. But none of that changes the strategic truth: there is no sustainable security for Israel without total victory, and there is no total victory without controlling all of Gaza. Otherwise, as we’ve seen time and time again, the terror will return, more tunnels, more rockets, more indoctrinated children raised to hate and murder Jews.

    Netanyahu now knows the time has come. He has given diplomacy its due, protected national unity, and made every effort to reunite the hostages with their families. But he also knows we cannot let Hamas, or any future terror entity, rebuild. There will be no more deals that leave terror intact. No more illusions of coexistence with a genocidal regime.

    This war ends only when Israel ensures that Gaza can never again be used as a weapon against us. Not for ten years. Not for one. Never again.

    It is now the duty of every Israeli, and every supporter of Israel, to stand firm. The fight ahead will not be easy, but the alternative is another October 7th, or worse. History will remember this moment not for how fast we acted, but for how clearly we saw what was necessary, and how unshakably we pursued it.

    Netanyahu has chosen a difficult path in an immoral and chaotic situation. Now, we must complete the mission, to make Gaza Jewish again, regardless of Netanyahu’s own statements to the contrary. That disagreement can be addressed in time. Just as the Jewish people pushed to reclaim Judea and Samaria and resettled it despite opposition from Israeli governments, so too will be done in Gaza. Because true security cannot come from a military presence alone, it requires a civilian presence rooted in commitment and permanence. So, don’t worry about Netanyahu’s statements, we will make Gaza Jewish again. We have no other choice.

    We are going home, to sing Ka Ribon on Shabbat or in Gaza, where the song was written by Chief Rabbi of Gaza City Yisrael Najara back in the 17th century!

    ?? ????? ?? ???? ???? ?????.

    Am Yisrael Chai!!!

    • The problem is multi-faceted:

      If Hamas is left to fight another day, they most certainly will.

      If the hostages are not returned, Hamas will indeed live to fight another day. Although the families are all worried about the hostages, the rest of the country is more concerned about the price Israel will need to pay to get them back.

      If Israel simply annexes the Strip, Israel is responsible for everything including distributing humanitarian aid, medical services, rebuilding everything (back better), and still trying to find the hostages or their remains.

      Not to forget, everybody who took part in 10/7/23 needs to be sentenced and appropriately punished.

      I’m sure you can think of other things that Israel would be responsible for.

      I’m not surprised that Netanyahu and his cabinet are having trouble deciding what to do next.

      Then there all the nay-sayers:
      The hostages’ families, who want their relatives back without concern for the first points above.
      The UN, the EU, Canada and all those countries that have been signing petitions denying Israel the right to solve the problem. They prefer the “Hamas gets to fight another day” option, with everything that entails.
      All the countries that want to recognize a Palestinian State whether it’s feasible or not.

      Then there are the leaders of the IDF, who for some reason prefer to disobey orders. Their commander in chief is the prime minister, none other than Netanyahu.

      Finally, we have the AG and the Supreme Court of Israel who, it seems, are in the pay of foreign organizations and do their bidding, in addition to all the failed previous prime ministers and other ministers who all know better but were unable to prove that when they were in the saddle.

      One thing is for sure: I don’t want Netanyahu’s job!

  3. They should use the Gaza voting records to figure out who supported Hamas in the last election, and “neutralise” them.

    Much easier to deal with about 500 people than a couple of million knuckle draggers.