Closing summary
This blog will be closing shortly but you can find all the Guardian’s Middle East coverage here.
Here is a summary of the developments on today’s blog:
The Israeli military has placed parts of Gaza City and Khan Younis under a new enforced displacement orders amid fears that the country’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is preparing to order the full occupation of the Palestinian territory later this week. The Times of Israel reported that Netanyahu planned to convene his security cabinet at 6pm, local time, on Thursday at his office in Jerusalem. It had been postponed amid mounting tensions over whether the plan was feasible.
The move came as the US president, Donald Trump, said any decision over expanded Israeli control in Gaza was up to Israel. “As far as the rest of it, I really can’t say. That’s going to be pretty much up to Israel,” he told reporters on Tuesday.
The Israeli defence minister, Israel Katz, said on Wednesday that the country’s chief of staff, Eyal Zamir, had a right to “express his views”, but that the military would ultimately have to “execute” any government decisions on Gaza. Katz’s statement on X came after reports in the Israeli media in recent days suggested that Zamir is opposed to a government plan to occupy the Gaza Strip.
Late on Tuesday, a senior UN official warned that expanding Israeli military operations inside the territory “would risk catastrophic consequences for millions of Palestinians and could further endanger the lives of the remaining hostages in Gaza”. Addressing the UN security council in New York, Miroslav Jenča, the assistant secretary general for Europe, central Asia and the Americas, said: “There is no military solution to the conflict in Gaza or the broader Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”
Gaza’s civil defence agency said on Wednesday that 20 people were killed when an aid truck overturned near the Nuseirat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip. “Twenty people were killed and dozens injured around midnight last night in a truck carrying aid [that] overturned … while hundreds of civilians were waiting for aid,” the agency’s spokesperson Mahmud Bassal told Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Hamas accused Israel of forcing truck drivers to take unsafe routes to reach aid distribution centres. “This often results in desperate crowds swarming the trucks,” its media office said in a statement.
Gaza’s health ministry reported that five more people had died from starvation in the coastal strip, which has been plunged into a devastating hunger crisis owing to Israel’s complete block on aid entering earlier this year.
Jordan said Israeli settlers attacked a Gaza-bound aid convoy on Wednesday in the second such incident in days, accusing Israel of failing to act firmly to prevent repeated assaults. The convoy, carrying 30 trucks of humanitarian aid, was delayed in its arrival in a violation of signed agreements, the government spokesperson Mohammad al-Momani told Reuters. “This requires a serious Israeli intervention and no leniency in dealing with those who obstruct these convoys,” Momani said.
The Israeli military undertook an ambitious project to store a giant trove of Palestinians’ phone calls on Microsoft’s servers in Europe. Revealed on Wednesday for the first time in an investigation by the Guardian with the Israeli-Palestinian publication +972 Magazine and Hebrew-language outlet Local Call, the cloud-based system – which first became operational in 2022 – enables Unit 8200 to store a giant trove of calls daily for extended periods of time.
Iran executed two men in separate cases on Wednesday, accusing one of spying for Israel and another of being a member of the Islamic State (IS) group, state media reported. A report by the judiciary news website Mizanonline identified the alleged spy as Rouzbeh Vadi, who was accused of relaying classified information to Israel’s intelligence service, the Mossad.
Targeting medics and hospitals in acts of war should be called “healthocide”, academics have urged, amid an increase in such attacks in recent years. Health services are increasingly deliberately under attack and medics are facing violence and abuse in conflict zones around the world – in particular in Gaza, but also in Lebanon, Ukraine, Sudan, Syria and El Salvador.
Even as global attention has turned to starvation in Gaza, the water crisis is just as severe according to aid groups. Most water and sanitation infrastructure has been destroyed and pumps from the aquifer often rely on electricity from small generators – for which fuel is rarely available.
A member of Hezbollah was killed in an Israeli drone strike in Lebanon’s north-eastern Bekaa valley on Tuesday night, the Times of Israel reports, citing the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). “The terrorist’s activity posed a threat to the State of Israel and its citizens,” the IDF said, describing Hassam Qassem Gharab as directing, from Lebanon, “terror cells in Syria to launch rockets at the Golan Heights in northern Israel”.
The Lebanese armed group Hezbollah has condemned the cabinet’s decision to move towards a state monopoly on arms, saying it was a “grave sin” that only served Israel. In a written statement on Wednesday, the group said the move was a result of US diktats and that its members would treat it as if it did not exist.
Five more Palestinians died of malnutrition in past 24 hours, says Gaza's health ministry
Gaza’s health ministry reported that five more people had died from starvation in the coastal strip, which has been plunged into a devastating hunger crisis owing to Israel’s complete block on aid entering earlier this year, while Jordan reported an aid convoy of 30 trucks that had left for Gaza had been attacked by militant Jewish settlers upon entering Israel.
The attack, the second such incident in days, saw Jordan accuse Israel of failing to act to prevent repeated assaults. “This requires a serious Israeli intervention and no leniency in dealing with those who obstruct these convoys,” said Jordan’s government spokesperson Mohammad al-Momani.
Amid continuing scenes of desperate suffering in Gaza, where vast areas have been rendered fields of rubble by incessant Israeli strikes, the strip’s civil defence agency reported that 20 people were killed when an aid truck overturned on a crowd of people.
“Twenty people were killed and dozens injured around midnight last night in a truck carrying aid [that] overturned … while hundreds of civilians were waiting for aid,” said the agency’s spokesperson, Mahmoud Bassal.
The incident took place near the Nuseirat refugee camp, as the truck was driving on an unsafe road that Israel had previously bombed, Bassal added.
The acute shortages of aid have seen trucks entering Gaza surrounded and looted by hungry Palestinians on numerous occasions, contributing to a pervasive sense of chaos.
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Critics of Netanyahu’s plan say any push for full occupation – a demand being made by Israel’s far right – would put the lives of Israeli hostages in Gaza at risk, could take between a year and two years to fully achieve and would come at the expense of the country’s increasing diplomatic isolation, with the international community increasingly horrified by its actions.
Among those who spoke out against the plan on Wednesday was the Israeli opposition leader, Yair Lapid. “I told Netanyahu that occupying Gaza is a very bad idea,” Lapid said after meeting with the Israeli prime minister. “You don’t make such a move if a majority of the people aren’t with you.”
Other critics include former leaders of Israel’s Shin Bet internal security service, the Mossad spy agency and the military – and also the former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak. In a video posted to social media this week, they said far-right members of the government are holding Israel “hostage” in prolonging the conflict.
Netanyahu’s objectives in Gaza are “a fantasy” said Yoram Cohen, a former head of Shin Bet, in the video.
Amid signs of divisions between Netanyahu and military commanders, the defence minister, Israel Katz, said on Wednesday that the army’s chief of staff, Eyal Zamir, could “express his views”, but that the military would ultimately have to “execute” any government decisions on Gaza.
Israel issues forced displacement orders amid fears of full occupation in Gaza
The Israeli military has placed parts of Gaza City and Khan Younis under a new enforced displacement orders amid fears that the country’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is preparing to order the full occupation of the Palestinian territory later this week.
The latest order for Gaza – euphemistically described by the Israeli Defense Force as an “evacuation” – is the latest in dozens of such announcements that have seen the vast majority of Gaza’s population displaced, many on multiple occasions.
The move came as the US president, Donald Trump, said any decision over expanded Israeli control in Gaza was up to Israel. “As far as the rest of it, I really can’t say. That’s going to be pretty much up to Israel,” he told reporters on Tuesday.
Many people had only returned to Gaza City relatively recently after long periods of displacement to find their homes war-damaged and looted with even doors and windows stolen in some cases.
The new forced displacement order for Gaza City comes as Israeli media reported Netanyahu’s apparent determination to push ahead with an expanded war after consultations with his military chiefs on Tuesday and despite growing disquiet from serving and former Israeli security officials over the proposals.
The mayor of Hiroshima has led calls for the world’s most powerful countries to abandon nuclear deterrence, at a ceremony to mark 80 years since the city was destroyed by an American atomic bomb.
As residents, survivors and representatives from 120 countries gathered at the city’s peace memorial park on Wednesday morning, Kazumi Matsui warned that the conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East had contributed to a growing acceptance of nuclear weapons.
“These developments flagrantly disregard the lessons the international community should have learned from the tragedies of history,” he said in his peace declaration, against the backdrop of the A-bomb dome – one of the few buildings that survived the attack eight decades ago.
“They threaten to topple the peace-building frameworks so many have worked so hard to construct,” he added, before urging younger people to recognise that acceptance of the nuclear option could cause “utterly inhumane” consequences for their future.
The Lebanese armed group Hezbollah has condemned the cabinet’s decision to move towards a state monopoly on arms, saying it was a “grave sin” that only served Israel.
In a written statement on Wednesday, the group said the move was a result of US diktats and that its members would treat it as if it did not exist.
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Humanitarian aid ready to be airdropped over the Gaza Strip from a German air force plane earlier today.
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Israel relying on Microsoft cloud for expansive surveillance of Palestinians
One afternoon in late 2021, Microsoft’s chief executive, Satya Nadella, met with the commander of Israel’s military surveillance agency, Unit 8200. On the spy chief’s agenda: moving vast amounts of top secret intelligence material into the US company’s cloud.
Meeting at Microsoft’s headquarters near Seattle, a former chicken farm turned hi-tech campus, the spymaster, Yossi Sariel, won Nadella’s support for a plan that would grant Unit 8200 access to a customised and segregated area within Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform.
Armed with Azure’s near-limitless storage capacity, Unit 8200 began building a powerful new mass surveillance tool: a sweeping and intrusive system that collects and stores recordings of millions of mobile phone calls made each day by Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.
Revealed here for the first time in an investigation by the Guardian with the Israeli-Palestinian publication +972 Magazine and Hebrew-language outlet Local Call, the cloud-based system – which first became operational in 2022 – enables Unit 8200 to store a giant trove of calls daily for extended periods of time.
Microsoft claims Nadella was unaware of what kind of data Unit 8200 planned to store in Azure. But a cache of leaked Microsoft documents and interviews with 11 sources from the company and Israeli military intelligence reveals how Azure has been used by Unit 8200 to store this expansive archive of everyday Palestinian communications.
According to three Unit 8200 sources, the cloud-based storage platform has facilitated the preparation of deadly airstrikes and has shaped military operations in Gaza and the West Bank.
Thanks to the control it exerts over Palestinian telecommunications infrastructure, Israel has long intercepted phone calls in the occupied territories. But the indiscriminate new system allows intelligence officers to play back the content of cellular calls made by Palestinians, capturing the conversations of a much larger pool of ordinary civilians.
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The son of a British woman being held in Iran on espionage charges has said speaking to her on the phone for the first time in 213 days felt like “five birthdays and 10 Christmases at once”.
Lindsay and Craig Foreman, both 52, were arrested on 3 January in Kerman, southern Iran, while travelling through the country from Armenia to Pakistan on a round-the-world motorbike trip.
Their family had not had direct contact with the couple since their incarceration seven months ago until Tuesday, when they were able to speak for the first time. They were also informed the couple had been transferred to separate Iranian prisons in and near Tehran.
“To hear your mum’s voice after so long, your rock, your guide, someone you’ve missed more than you can even express, it’s like five birthdays and 10 Christmases all at once,” said Lindsay’s son, Joe Bennett.
While the family said the phone calls provided joy and relief, they continue to urge the government to secure the couple’s release. The couple have received calls from British embassy officials, but their family said they should be allowed to receive consular and medical visits.
The family learned on Monday that Lindsay had been transferred to Qarchak women’s prison, south of Tehran. Human rights groups have repeatedly criticised the dire conditions reported there.
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Netanyahu to convene security cabinet tomorrow evening – report
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu will convene his security cabinet at 6pm, local time, on Thursday at his office in Jerusalem, reports the Times of Israel.
According to the Israeli online newspaper, the cabinet is reportedly set to approve a full military occupation of the Gaza Strip during tomorrow’s meeting, despite the country’s chief of staff, Eyal Zamir and army officials warning against the move.
The Guardian has been unable to independently verify the report.
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Humanitarian agencies are warning that hunger is spreading rapidly across the Gaza Strip and a famine is unfolding. Aid has been trickling into Gaza via trucks and coordinated humanitarian airdrops over the territory, after international pressure over severe shortages of food and medical supplies.
Footage from the ground shows injured Palestinians crowding at hospitals after Israeli fire injured dozens of people at an aid distribution site. Aid sites have become increasingly dangerous in recent months after a series of Israeli attacks in the form of airstrikes and gunfire. Crowds of hungry people have routinely ripped aid off the backs of moving trucks, local drivers say.
Protesters calling for the ban on Palestine Action to be lifted are planning to stage a demonstration in London on Saturday that could result in hundreds being arrested.
The mass action is in support of a campaign to overturn the proscription of the group, which was banned under terrorism laws on 5 July.
Organisers are asking participants to hold up placards saying: “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action.”
The Metropolitan police have warned that anyone showing support for Palestine Action will be arrested.
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The Israeli military has told the news agency Agence France-Presse (AFP) that it is looking into the reports that 20 people were killed when an aid truck overturned on a crowd of aid seekers in the central Gaza Strip (see 8.03am BST).
Here are some images coming in via the newswires today:
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Lebanon has decided to rebaptise a road named after the former Syrian president Hafez al-Assad in favour of the late Lebanese musician and playwright Ziad Rahbani, a move many welcomed on Wednesday, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP).
“Hafez al-Assad into the dustbin of history, Ziad Rahbani is the name of the airport road for ever!” the independent lawmaker Mark Daou, who opposes Hezbollah, wrote on X.
On Tuesday, the government announced the new name for the thoroughfare, which runs to the international airport through south Beirut, where Hezbollah enjoys strong support, reports AFP.
The Lebanese actor Ziad Itani welcomed the move, telling AFP that the former Syrian leader was associated with “dark periods in Lebanese history, marked by massacres, abuses and assassinations”.
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A member of Hezbollah was killed in an Israeli drone strike in Lebanon’s north-eastern Bekaa valley on Tuesday night, the Times of Israel reports, citing the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).
“The terrorist’s activity posed a threat to the State of Israel and its citizens,” the IDF said, describing Hassam Qassem Gharab as directing, from Lebanon, “terror cells in Syria to launch rockets at the Golan Heights in northern Israel”.
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Even as global attention has turned to starvation in Gaza, where after 22 months of a devastating Israeli military campaign a global hunger monitor says a famine scenario is unfolding, the water crisis is just as severe according to aid groups, reports Reuters.
Though some water comes from small desalination units run by aid agencies, most is drawn from wells in a brackish aquifer that has been further polluted by sewage and chemicals seeping through the rubble, spreading diarrhoea and hepatitis.
Cogat, the Israeli military agency responsible for coordinating aid in the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories, says it operates two water pipelines into the Gaza Strip providing millions of litres of water a day. Palestinian water officials say these have not been working recently, reports Reuters.
Israel stopped all water and electricity supply to Gaza early in the war, later partly resuming it, though the pipeline network in the territory has been badly damaged.
Most water and sanitation infrastructure has been destroyed and pumps from the aquifer often rely on electricity from small generators – for which fuel is rarely available.
According to Reuters, Cogat said the Israeli military has allowed coordination with aid organisations to bring in equipment to maintain water infrastructure throughout the conflict.
The United Nations says the minimum emergency level of water consumption per person is 15 litres a day for drinking, cooking, cleaning and washing. Average daily consumption in Israel is about 247 litres a day according to Israeli rights group B’Tselem.
Bushra Khalidi, the humanitarian policy lead for the aid agency Oxfam in the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories said the average consumption in Gaza now was 3-5 litres a day.
Oxfam said last week that preventable and treatable water-borne diseases were “ripping through Gaza”, with reported rates increasing by almost 150% over the past three months.
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Israeli officials have said Benjamin Netanyahu discussed a plan with the White House as it attempted to portray Hamas as having walked away from ceasefire negotiations, a claim denied by Hamas, which blamed Israel for the protracted impasse.
While the Trump administration has not commented on the Netanyahu proposal, it has been given some credence by leaked comments made by the US envoy Steve Witkoff to Israeli hostage families at the weekend, suggesting his proposal for a ceasefire in exchange for the release of half of the remaining living hostages had failed.
Witkoff added that Donald Trump “now believes that everybody should come home at once. No piecemeal deals,” adding they were now pursuing an “all or nothing” plan.
At the centre of the Netanyahu plan is the notion that, by surrounding areas where hostages are believed to be held, Israeli forces can raid those areas and rescue the captives, a policy that has broadly failed during the past two years of war.
Amid questions over the practicality of a wider offensive, some have speculated that Netanyahu’s call may be more rhetorical than real in substance, aimed at keeping onboard far-right ministers who have demanded they be allowed to build settlements in Gaza.
A Palestinian official close to the talks and mediation said Israeli threats could be a way to pressure Hamas to make concessions at the negotiation table.
“It will only complicate the negotiation further, at the end, the resistance factions will not accept less than an end to the war, and a full withdrawal from Gaza,” the official told Reuters, requesting not to be named.
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Targeting medics and hospitals in acts of war should be called “healthocide”, academics have urged, amid an increase in such attacks in recent years.
Health services are increasingly deliberately under attack and medics are facing violence and abuse in conflict zones around the world – in particular in Gaza, but also in Lebanon, Ukraine, Sudan, Syria and El Salvador.
This is despite the longstanding principle under international humanitarian law of medical neutrality, which protects healthcare workers and facilities during armed conflict and civil unrest, enabling them to provide medical care to those in need.
In a commentary published in the British Medical Journal, Dr Joelle Abi-Rached and colleagues of the American University of Beirut, Lebanon wrote:
Both in Gaza and Lebanon, healthcare facilities have not only been directly targeted, but access to care has also been obstructed, including incidents where ambulances have been prevented from reaching the injured, or deliberately attacked.
What is becoming clear is that healthcare workers and facilities are no longer afforded the protection guaranteed by international humanitarian law.
The authors cite data from Israel’s full-scale invasion of Gaza, which has resulted in at least 986 medical workers’ deaths. Recent figures from the Healthcare Workers Watch show that 28 doctors from Gaza are being held inside Israeli prisons without any charge, eight them senior consultants in surgery, orthopaedics, intensive care, cardiology and paediatrics.
The World Health Organization’s representative for the West Bank and Gaza stated at the UN security council in January that hospitals in Gaza had “turned into battlegrounds”, while the healthcare system was being “systematically dismantled and driven to the brink of collapse”.
Jordan says Israeli settlers attacked Gaza-bound aid convoy on Wednesday
Jordan said Israeli settlers attacked a Gaza-bound aid convoy on Wednesday in the second such incident in days, accusing Israel of failing to act firmly to prevent repeated assaults.
The convoy, carrying 30 trucks of humanitarian aid, was delayed in its arrival in a violation of signed agreements, the government spokesperson Mohammad al-Momani told Reuters.
“This requires a serious Israeli intervention and no leniency in dealing with those who obstruct these convoys,” Momani said.
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The Israeli defence minister, Israel Katz, said on Wednesday that the country’s chief of staff, Eyal Zamir, had a right to “express his views”, but that the military would ultimately have to “execute” any government decisions on Gaza, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Katz’s statement on the social media website X came after reports in the Israeli media in recent days suggested that Zamir is opposed to a government plan to occupy the Gaza Strip.
Katz wrote on X:
It is the right and duty of the chief of staff to express his position in the appropriate forums, and after decisions are made by the political echelon, the [army] will execute them with determination and professionalism … until the war’s objectives are achieved.
As the defence minister responsible for the [army] on behalf of the government, I must ensure that these decisions are carried out – and so it will be.
AFP reports that Zamir has made no public statements on the matter but reportedly expressed his opposition to a full military occupation in a restricted meeting between the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and security officials on Tuesday.
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Footage taken by the Guardian’s international correspondent, Lorenzo Tondo, shows the extent of the destruction of Gaza. The Guardian traveled on a Jordanian plane delivering aid as starvation worsens in the territory (see 8.32am BST).
Iran executed two men in separate cases on Wednesday, accusing one of spying for Israel and another of being a member of the Islamic State (IS) group, state media reported, according to the Associated Press (AP).
A report by the judiciary news website Mizanonline identified the alleged spy as Rouzbeh Vadi, who was accused of relaying classified information to Israel’s intelligence service, the Mossad.
Authorities said Vadi provided information about an Iranian nuclear scientist who was killed during Israel’s June airstrikes on Iran, according to the report, which did not identify the scientist or the time and place of Vadi’s arrest.
Vadi met the Mossad officers five times in Vienna, Austria, the report said.
Israel’s ambassador to France, Joshua Zarka, said in June that Israel’s 12-day war on Iran included targeted strikes that killed at least 14 physicists and engineers involved with Iran’s nuclear programme.
Iran has hanged seven people for espionage during the conflict with Israel, sparking fears from activists that the government could conduct a wave of executions.
Iran separately hanged a man they said was a member of IS on Wednesday after he was convicted of plotting sabotage, Mizanonline reported. Officials accused Mehdi Asgharzadeh of participating in military training in Syria and Iraq before illegally entering Iran with a four-member team who were killed in a fight with Iranian security, the news site reported.
Authorities said Iran’s supreme court upheld the sentences of lower courts and followed full legal procedures before executing both men, Mizanonline reported.
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The Guardian was granted permission on Tuesday to travel onboard a Jordanian military aircraft providing aid. Israel announced last week that it had resumed coordinated humanitarian airdrops over Gaza, following mounting international pressure over severe shortages of food and medical supplies, which has reached such a crisis point that a famine is now unfolding there.
The flight offered not only a chance to witness three tonnes of aid – far from sufficient – dropped over the famine-stricken strip but also a rare opportunity to observe, albeit from above, a territory that has been largely sealed off from the international media since 7 October and the subsequent offensive launched by Israel. Following the Hamas-led attacks that day, Israel barred foreign journalists from entering Gaza – an unprecedented move in the history of modern conflict, marking one of the rare moments that reporters have been denied access to an active war zone.
Even from an altitude of about 2,000ft (600 metres), it was possible to glimpse places that mark some of the conflict’s most devastating chapters – a landscape etched with the scars of its deadliest attacks.
These are the sites of bombings and sieges that have been courageously documented by Palestinian journalists – often at the cost of their own lives. More than 230 Palestinian reporters lie buried beneath in hastily dug cemeteries.
You can read the full story by Lorenzo Tondo with photography by Alessio Mamo here:
Trump declines to say whether he supports or opposes potential Israeli military takeover of Gaza, as UN alarmed by expansion reports
On Tuesday, the US president, Donald Trump, declined to say whether he supported or opposed a potential military takeover of Gaza by Israel and said his administration’s focus was on increasing food access to the Palestinian territory.
Trump told reporters:
I know that we are there now trying to get people fed. As far as the rest of it, I really can’t say. That’s going to be pretty much up to Israel.
Late on Tuesday, a senior UN official warned that expanding Israeli military operations inside the territory “would risk catastrophic consequences for millions of Palestinians and could further endanger the lives of the remaining hostages in Gaza”.
Addressing the UN security council in New York, Miroslav Jenča, the assistant secretary general for Europe, central Asia and the Americas, said:
There is no military solution to the conflict in Gaza or the broader Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
China’s deputy UN representative, Geng Shuang, expressed “great concern” about the reported plans for Gaza and added:
We urge Israel to immediately halt such dangerous actions.
He called for a ceasefire and urged countries with influence to take concrete steps to help bring one about.
Updated
Israeli cabinet meeting postponed as tensions rise over Netanyahu’s occupation plan
An Israeli security cabinet meeting, which had been expected to discuss Benjamin Netanyahu’s call for the “full occupation” of Gaza, has been postponed amid mounting tensions over whether the plan is feasible.
Amid a stalling of ceasefire negotiations with Hamas, Israeli officials had briefed local and international media that the prime minister was considering an expansive offensive, aimed at taking full control of the Palestinian territory after 22 months of war against the militant group Hamas.
However, senior Israeli military officers and former senior commanders warned the plan would endanger the lives of the remaining Israeli hostages held by Hamas, risk further international isolation of Israel and require Israeli soldiers to administer a population in which Hamas fighters were still present.
Any move towards full occupation is likely to be strongly resisted by large parts of the international community, already horrified by the conduct of Israel’s military campaign.
Israel’s scorched-earth campaign has obliterated large parts of Gaza, killed more than 60,000 people, mostly civilians, forced nearly all of Gaza’s more than 2 million people from their homes and created what a global hunger monitor last week called an unfolding famine.
That has caused widespread international anger and prompted several European countries to say they would recognise a Palestinian state next month if there was no ceasefire, amid mounting calls for sanctions against Israel.
The disquiet follows briefings to Israeli journalists on Monday saying that Netanyahu had decided the expanded offensive was a foregone conclusion.
“The die has been cast. We’re going for the full conquest of the Gaza Strip – and defeating Hamas,” the unnamed sources said, quoting Netanyahu.
By Tuesday, however, evidence had emerged of deep splits between Netanyahu and senior military officials, including the chief of staff, Eyal Zamir, who reportedly voiced opposition to the plan, prompting calls for his dismissal.
Absent at a security cabinet meeting, Netanyahu did, however, meet security officials, but not in a decision-making setting. His office said later that the Israeli military would carry out any decision made in cabinet.
During a visit to an army training facility earlier on Tuesday, Netanyahu said:
It is necessary to complete the defeat of the enemy in Gaza, to free all our hostages and to ensure that Gaza will no longer pose a threat to Israel.
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Gaza civil defence agency says 20 killed by overturned aid truck
Gaza’s civil defence agency said on Wednesday that 20 people were killed when an aid truck overturned near the Nuseirat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip.
“Twenty people were killed and dozens injured around midnight last night in a truck carrying aid [that] overturned … while hundreds of civilians were waiting for aid,” the agency’s spokesperson Mahmud Bassal told Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Hamas accused Israel of forcing truck drivers to take unsafe routes to reach aid distribution centres. “This often results in desperate crowds swarming the trucks,” its media office said in a statement.
Seperately, it was reported yesterday that truck drivers trying to deliver aid inside Gaza said their work had become increasingly dangerous in recent months as people have grown desperately hungry and violent gangs have filled a power vacuum left by the territory’s Hamas rulers.
Crowds of hungry people have routinely ripped aid off the backs of moving trucks, the local drivers said. According to reports, some trucks have been hijacked by armed men working for gangs who sell the aid in Gaza’s markets for exorbitant prices.
In other developments:
An Israeli security cabinet meeting, which had been expected to discuss Benjamin Netanyahu’s call for the “full occupation” of Gaza, has been postponed amid mounting tensions over whether the plan is feasible. Amid a stalling of ceasefire negotiations with Hamas, Israeli officials had briefed local and international media that the prime minister was considering an expansive offensive, aimed at taking full control of the Palestinian territory after 22 months of war against the militant group Hamas.
On Tuesday, the United Nations called reports about a possible decision to expand Israel’s military operations throughout the Gaza Strip “deeply alarming” if true. The UN assistant secretary general Miroslav Jenča told a UN security council meeting on the situation in Gaza that such a move “would risk catastrophic consequences … and could further endanger the lives of the remaining hostages in Gaza”.
The US president, Donald Trump, declined to say whether he supported or opposed a potential military takeover of Gaza by Israel and said his administration’s focus was on increasing food access to the Palestinian territory under assault from Washington’s ally. “I know that we are there now trying to get people fed,” Trump told reporters on Tuesday. “As far as the rest of it, I really can’t say. That’s going to be pretty much up to Israel.” Trump said Israel and Arab states were going to help with food and aid distribution in Gaza and provide financial assistance. He did not elaborate.
The leader of Lebanon’s Hezbollah warned on Tuesday that if Israel intensified its military operations against his group, the Iran-backed armed faction would resume firing missiles toward Israel. Naim Qassem’s comments came as Lebanon’s cabinet was meeting to discuss Hezbollah’s disarmament.
Gaza’s civil defence agency said 26 people were killed by Israeli gunfire and airstrikes on Tuesday, including 14 who were waiting near an aid distribution site. Civil defence spokesperson Mahmud Bassal told AFP that eight people were killed by Israeli gunfire while waiting for aid near the southern city of Khan Younis.
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