Israel approves a plan providing for the “conquest” of the Gaza Strip

The Israeli security firm has approved an extension of military operations aimed at the “conquest” of the Gaza Strip, an official source said on Monday, after the mobilization of tens of thousands of reservists for this offensive.

(Keystone-ATS) The decision comes as the United Nations continues to alert on the humanitarian disaster and the risk of famine to which the 2.4 million Palestinians in this territory subject to a total blockade by Israel has been exposed since March 2.

But the cabinet believes that there is “currently enough food” in the Gaza Strip and has agreed to the “possibility of a humanitarian distribution” if it were “necessary,” said the official source.

The plan provides that Israel maintains its control of the Gaza Strip and supports a project organizing the “voluntary departure” of its inhabitants, according to the same source.

Sunday evening, the Israeli army had confirmed the recall of “tens of thousands of reservists”.

The objective displayed by the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, one of the most on the right in the history of Israel, is still to “defeat” the Islamist Hamas movement, which sparked the war with its unprecedented attack on October 7, 2023 and “bringing the hostages” removed that day.

According to a senior security official, the time for military preparations authorizes a window for the negotiation of a hostage liberation agreement, by “at the end of the visit of the American president” Donald Trump in the Middle East, where he is expected from May 13 to 16.

The plan approved during the night by the security firm, bringing together a limited number of ministers, provides for “the conquest of the Gaza Strip and the control of the territories” seized, according to the official source.

“Danger of death”

“Unlike the wishes of more than 70% of the population”, the government has decided to put “all the hostages in danger of death”, commented the Family Forum, the largest association of hostages of hostages in Israel, denouncing a plan which “also threatens the life of our soldiers”.

The fighting in Gaza resulted in more than 850 Israeli soldiers.

During the meeting of the cabinet, Netanyahu said he wanted to “promote the Trump plan aimed at the departure of the inhabitants of Gaza”, according to the official source.

In early February, Trump launched the idea of ​​taking control of the Gaza Strip by the United States to rebuild it and make it “Riviera du Middle East”.

For this, its inhabitants could, according to him, be moved to Egypt and Jordan, two neighboring countries which categorically rejected this option.

This project had sparked an international outcry, but the Israeli authorities refer to it regularly and created a special agency to allow the Palestinians to leave the Gaza Strip.

International aid organizations, as well as the Palestinians of Gaza, have been testifying for weeks to a dramatic humanitarian situation, in particular because of the shortages of basic necessities.

The World Food Program (PAM), one of the main food suppliers in the Gaza Strip, announced on April 25 to have “exhausted all its stocks”.

” Blackmail “

Israel accuses Hamas of diverting humanitarian aid, and justifying its blockade from the Gaza Strip by the need to put pressure on the movement so that it releases hostages.

“The plan presented to us means that large areas of Gaza […] will remain deprived of supply, “noted the UN Humanitarian Affairs Office (OCHA), rejecting a project that” contravenes fundamental humanitarian principles “.

Hamas on Monday accused Israel of “blackmail” with humanitarian aid. For the movement, Israel is “fully responsible for the worsening of the humanitarian disaster”.

The Israeli army resumed its bombings and its offensive on the Gaza Strip on March 18, ending two months of truce that made it possible to leave Gaza 33 Israeli hostages including eight dead, in exchange for the release of some 1,800 Palestinians owned by Israel.

The attack on October 7 led to the death of 1,218 people on the Israeli side, for most civilians, according to an AFP count based on official data.

The Israeli reprisal campaign left at least 52,567 dead in the Gaza Strip, mostly civilians, according to data from the Ministry of Health of Hamas, deemed reliable by the UN.

Of the 251 people kidnapped on October 7, 2023, 58 are still retained in Gaza, 34 of which were declared dead by the Israeli army. Hamas also retains the body of an Israeli soldier killed in a previous war in Gaza in 2014.