Nationwide Safety Adviser Tzachi Hanegbi voiced opposition to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s proposal to take over Gaza Metropolis on Thursday evening, telling the safety cupboard that he was “not ready to surrender on saving the hostages,” based on quotes reported by Channel 12 information.
“I don’t perceive how somebody who noticed the movies of [hostages] Evyatar [David] and Rom [Braslavski] in addition to all of the others that had been printed earlier than them can say: ‘All the things or nothing,’” he reportedly stated.
There are 50 hostages left in Gaza, however solely 20 of them are believed to nonetheless be alive. A number of high safety officers have reportedly warned the federal government the plan will threat their lives.
“The importance of this [decision] is giving up on the prospect to instantly save 10 hostages,” Hanegbi stated.
“A ceasefire will permit us to try to attain an settlement on the remaining 10. I agree utterly with the IDF chief of employees that controlling Gaza Metropolis will endanger the lives of the hostages; due to this fact, I oppose the prime minister’s proposal,” the report quoted Hanegbi as including.
He indicated he didn’t consider Hamas would soften its calls for for a deal on account of the Israel threats, saying “Hamas received’t adhere to this diktat.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends a Christian Convention in Jerusalem, on April 27, 2025. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)
The report said that, together with Hanegbi, IDF Chief of Employees Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir and Mossad Chief David Barnea opposed the prime minister’s proposal.
Protection Minister Israel Katz and Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer supported it Channel 12 stated.
The report quoted Dermer as saying, “If we obtain a [new] deal supply, we’ll contemplate whether or not to halt [the offensive].”
Far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich was quoted as responding: “If we’re not going for a full occupation and are doing it only for a deal, then it’s not value it. If that’s the case, then the chief of employees’s plan is really preferable.”
Nationwide Safety Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, additionally of the far proper, agreed. “We should not preserve stopping midway,” he stated. “The message Hamas retains getting is that the ball is of their courtroom. We’ve to go all the way in which.”
Nationwide Safety Minister Itamar Ben Gvir leads an Otzma Yehudit faction assembly on the Knesset, in Jerusalem, on June 30, 2025. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)
Zamir was stated to warn: “The hostages’ lives shall be at risk if we proceed with a plan to occupy Gaza. We’ve no method to assure that they received’t be harmed in such a scenario. If that’s what you’re aiming for, I recommend you drop the return of the hostages as one of many battle’s goals.”
Shas chief Aryeh Deri gave the impression to be on Zamir’s saide, saying that “Solely by way of a deal will we free hostages” and that it will be “immoral” to fail to return them.
At one level, based on Channel 12, Lawyer Normal Gali Baharav-Miara — who was fired by the federal government earlier this week however who stays in her submit pending a Excessive Courtroom evaluate — informed the ministers that based on worldwide legislation, “You’ll be able to’t perform an occupation [of Gaza] with out taking duty” for the inhabitants.
Netanyahu reportedly shot this down. “The place did you get ‘occupation’ from? We wish to management the world like we’ve got carried out somewhere else.”
Regardless of the misgivings of the assorted officers, ultimately the safety cupboard authorized Netanyahu’s proposal to take over the densely populated Gaza Metropolis.
The limitation of the takeover to Gaza Metropolis didn’t appear to go so far as what had earlier been characterised as a plan to occupy the whole lot of the Strip. Netanyahu informed Fox Information hours earlier than the safety cupboard convened {that a} full takeover of Gaza was his intention.
Nonetheless, the assertion from Netanyahu’s workplace notably described the adopted proposal as one geared toward “defeating Hamas,” that means that there could also be subsequent operations past the one for Gaza Metropolis that had been authorized and never introduced.
Mourners pray by the physique of somebody killed, following in a single day Israeli bombardment, within the Mawasi space of Khan Younis within the southern Gaza Strip, on August 5, 2025. (AFP)
The choice didn’t use the phrase “occupy,” and as an alternative referred to “taking on,” as a consequence of authorized causes pertaining to Israel’s duty for civilian issues in Gaza, based on the Ynet information website. The outlet added, nonetheless, citing an unnamed senior Israeli official, that this distinction was superficial, and the choice in actual fact associated to full army rule. The conquest would cease if a hostage deal is clinched, based on the report.
IDF troops are seen working within the Gaza Strip in a picture printed by the army on August 8, 2025. (Israel Protection Forces)
The assertion from Netanyahu’s workplace specified that Israel will present humanitarian support to the civilian inhabitants exterior fight zones.
Roughly a million Palestinians — a lot of whom have already been displaced a number of instances all through the 22-month battle — at present reside in Gaza Metropolis, in northern Gaza. A senior Israeli official informed The Occasions of Israel that the plan authorized by the cupboard will see these civilians evacuated towards the south.
The cupboard determination states that Palestinians may have till October 7, 2025, to evacuate Gaza Metropolis — a two-month window that additionally coincides with the second anniversary of Hamas’s assault on Israel, the Israeli official stated. The IDF will then launch its floor offensive into Gaza Metropolis, putting a siege on the world with the intention to kill any remaining Hamas operatives. After the takeover is full, the official indicated that the IDF will proceed to the remaining unconquered areas of Gaza.
Israel says it at present controls 75 p.c of the Strip, whereas the IDF has largely averted getting into the remaining 25% — which principally includes Gaza Metropolis and refugee camps in central Gaza — as a result of perception that many of the hostages are being held there. Virtually all of Gaza’s 2 million residents are at present within the quarter of the Strip that the IDF doesn’t management. Hamas has threatened to execute hostages if its operatives detect Israeli troops closing in; Hamas captors killed six Israeli hostages in Rafah, in southern Gaza, final August, when IDF troops inadvertently neared the tunnel the place they had been being held.
A airplane airdrops humanitarian support loaded with meals provides within the northern Gaza Strip, August 5, 2025. (Ali Hassan/Flash90)
Hostage households are vehemently against the plan authorized by the federal government, fearing it would result in their family members’ demise, and staged a fiery protest in Tel Aviv on Thursday evening. They had been joined by 1000’s of supporters who blocked roads and clashed with police who tried to clear them.
They argue that the final 5 months have confirmed that army stress has not led Hamas to launch the hostages and that Israel is able to conform to Hamas’s demand to finish the battle, as the phobia group now not poses a strategic menace to the Jewish state because it did on October 7, 2023.
Netanyahu argues that ending the battle and withdrawing from Gaza, as Hamas calls for, will permit Hamas to regroup.
He’s additionally reliant on far-right coalition companions who wish to completely occupy the Strip with the intention to push Palestinians out of the enclave and re-establish settlements of their place.
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