Israel is on the brink of launching an operation to occupy the entirety of Gaza, according to reports.
The Israeli security cabinet is expected to approve the escalation plan later today, with the aim of destroying Hamas and forcing it to give up the remaining hostages, according to Israeli media.
Reports suggest that the military will enter the roughly 25 per cent of Gaza that it does not currently control, including areas where hostages are being held.
The chief of the Israel Defence Forces (IDF), Lt Gen Eyal Zamir, said: “Whatever the political echelon decides, we will execute.”
Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005, removing troops and settlements, but maintained control over the Strip, including imposing a blockade.
The UN, British Government and human rights organisations consider that Israel has been occupying Gaza since 1967.
Experts say the plan set to be approved today, which is believed to be opposed by parts of the Israeli military, would force more displacement and starvation – and could even see the imposition of Israeli settlers.
Occupation would force relocations, limit aid and put hostages at risk
Security sources told the Israeli broadcaster Kan that the target of the plan for full occupation was to “push the Gazan population southward, to Mawasi [on the coast] in a relatively short time”.
Meanwhile, Channel 12 reported that the plan would “begin with the conquest of Gaza City” and forcibly expelling its population, with the US expected to help Israel provide “humanitarian” logistics and “temporary civilian infrastructure”.
The sources estimated that it would take five months for ground forces to fully invade and hold Gaza City and central areas.
Dr Ahron Bregman, an academic at King’s College London (KCL) who served for six years in the Israeli army, said a full occupation would likely take several months and involve further displacement of people.
Around 90 per cent of Gaza’s population has already been displaced, according to the UN.
“What the Israelis will probably try to do is to relocate the population, move them from place to place, so there’ll be a terrible suffering in terms of people having to leave their tents and go elsewhere,” he said.
“[Full occupation] will also make the supply of food and goods more difficult, because it will be a war zone.”
However, Dr Bregman said that he believed the comments were posturing designed to put pressure on Hamas amid ongoing peace talks, and that Israel would likely prioritise local operations rather than full occupation.
Dr Robert Geist Pinfold, an international security lecturer at KCL, said that the plan would be likely to lead to further deaths from starvation.
Children are among those who have died from starvation in Gaza, with hospitals treating 20,000 children for acute malnutrition since April.
Israel imposed a total blockade of aid deliveries to Gaza in early March before resuming its attacks on the Strip, ending a two-month ceasefire with Hamas.
It partially eased the blockade two months later, but the UN’s humanitarian chief said it was still only permitting “a drop in the ocean of what is urgently needed”.
“We [already] have around 80 per cent of the population concentrated in 20 per cent of the territory. Expanding Israel’s occupation would mean more Gazans in even less territory, and as a result, we’re likely to see more deaths from starvation and malnutrition and more people being killed [while] seeking aid,” Dr Geist Pinfold said.
The international security expert also warned that further operations would put the remaining living hostages – believed to be around 20 – at risk.
“The IDF hasn’t occupied the two-thirds of the territory envisioned in Gidon’s Chariots [the Israeli plan for Gaza] because there is no operational need and/or benefit, and because it would endanger the hostages who would be more likely to die as a result of ‘friendly fire’ from Israel, or because their captors kill the hostages when Israeli troops are in close proximity.”
Plan paves way for long-term occupation
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will be under pressure from extremist politicians to turn temporary occupation into a long-term reality, Geist Pinfold said.
“We are coming up to the 20-year anniversary of Israel’s disengagement from Gaza, when it removed 11,000 soldiers and settlers from the territory,” he said.
“The settlement movement is still hurting from this decision and they want to reverse it as soon as possible. They will, as a result, be very happy with Netanyahu’s announcement and hope it will be followed by plans to either annex or re-settle the territory. This is the real pressure on Netanyahu right now.”
Far-right Israeli politicians, including the finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, have called for Palestinians to be displaced from Gaza to allow for its resettlement by Israel.
A group of far-right politicians and settlers discussed a plan, called “The master plan for settlement in the Gaza Strip”, last month.
Smotrich recently said of the idea of Israeli settlers’ returning to Gaza: “It’s real. For 20 years we called it wishful thinking. It seems to me it is now a real working plan.”
Professor Yossi Mekelberg, senior consulting fellow at Chatham House, said that the new plan could mark the start of “the most extreme version” of Israeli war aims in Gaza, influenced by ultranationalists, “of occupying Gaza, rebuilding it at some point, and – not beyond the realm of possibility – implementing a plan of expelling maybe hundreds of thousands of people, maybe the entire population”.
“We have already seen discourse about expelling through voluntary migration. If you starve people and [leave] them in places that [are] impossible to live [in], they might say, yes I want to leave. But this is not our definition of voluntary.”
Omar Shakir, Israel Palestine director for Human Rights Watch, said the plan could see the prolonged presence of ground troops, the imposition of additional checkpoints and movement restrictions, as in the West Bank.
It could also be “code for building settlements” as in the West Bank, which have been deemed illegal by the International Court of Justice.
“Our position is that Israel has been an occupying power since 1967. From 2005, Israel formally dismantled the direct military rule, but it retained all sorts of overarching controls over entry and exit, movement of people, buffer zones, access to connection to water [and] electricity, as well as internet infrastructure and taxation and security,” he said.
“October 2023 didn’t change that. It did see the advent of ground troops, which mostly weren’t there between 2005 and 2023, but it doesn’t change the fact of occupation.”
Military ‘opposes plan’ to occupy Gaza
Bregman said there was “very strong opposition” to a full occupation within the Israeli military itself.
This opposition was being led by Eyal Zamir, the IDF chief of staff, said Dr Bregman, and was borne out of both the risks to the hostages and the pressure on the military.
“The military is totally exhausted in both equipment and soldiers. To occupy the remaining 25 per cent of the Gaza Strip will require modulation of reserves, and the reserves are totally exhausted at the moment,” Dr Bregman said.
“In the Gaza Strip, there are about four divisions. To occupy the Gaza Strip, they will need at least six divisions, and there is a very strong opposition to that in the public in Israel, the vast majority of whom want this end to war.”
Professor Mekelberg also said there was “plenty of reservation” within the IDF about further operations “because it means more soldiers entering a dangerous places and later, bringing in more reserve soldiers”.
This would be politically difficult because the Israeli Government was embroiled in a battle over the recruitment of ultra-Orthodox men into the military, Professor Mekelberg said.
The IDF did not respond to a request for comment.
Plan would further alienate Israel internationally
Dr Burcu Ozcelik, a fellow at the Royal United Services Institute think-tank in London, said a full-scale occupation “would mark the beginning of a bleak and highly volatile new phase of the war with far-reaching regional and international implications”.
She suggested the plan might have come in response and retaliation for European plans to recognise a Palestinian state, as well as the failure to agree to a ceasefire with Hamas that would release the hostages.
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“Any occupation would clearly undermine and destroy what remains of the prospect for a two-state solution,” she said. “A full takeover would entail long-term and immense material, moral and reputational costs to Israel.
Dr Bregman also said it would also be likely to further alienate Israel internationally, and could even spur on more countries to recognise a Palestinian state, as the UK has pledged to do unless Israel changes its approach.
“It would be received negatively and there would be growing criticism of Israel. I believe that it will push more countries, who currently still hesitate, to recognise a Palestinian state. The world has turned its back on Israel overall, not everyone, because of the horrible pictures coming out of the Gaza Strip and also because of the policies [towards aid] there.”
The Israeli Government did not respond to a request for comment.