The Israeli prime minister is pushing to take control of Gaza’s largest urban hub despite a wave of global criticism.
A senior United Nations official has warned the UN Security Council (UNSC) that Israel’s plan to seize Gaza City risked “another calamity” in the Gaza Strip with far-reaching consequences, as five more people in Gaza reportedly died from starvation – bringing the overall toll to 217, including 100 children.
UN Assistant Secretary-General for Europe, Central Asia and the Americas Miroslav Jenca on Sunday told an emergency weekend meeting that if implemented, the plan could result in the displacement of all civilians from Gaza City by October 7, 2025, affecting some 800,000 people, many of them already previously displaced.
This “will likely trigger another calamity in Gaza, reverberating across the region and causing further forced displacement, killings and destruction, compounding the unbearable suffering of the population,” Jenca said.
Palestinian UN Ambassador Riyad Mansour told the UNSC that Israel was aiming for “the destruction of the Palestinian people through forced transfer and massacres to facilitate its annexation of our land”.
“What will force Israel to change course is our ability to transform justified condemnation into just actions … History will judge us all,” he said.
Foreign powers, including some of Israel’s allies, have slammed Israel’s plan. The United Kingdom, a close ally of Israel which nonetheless pushed for an emergency meeting on the crisis, warned the Israeli plan risked prolonging the conflict.
“It will only deepen the suffering of Palestinian civilians in Gaza. This is not a path to resolution. It is a path to more bloodshed,” the British Deputy Ambassador to the UN James Kariuki said.
Another staunch Israel ally, Germany, said it could not actively support Israel’s plan to expand military operations in Gaza and displace of Palestinians.
“The images of children dying of hunger or civilians being targeted as they tried to find food are unbearable,” Dharmadhikari said, urging Israel to comply with international humanitarian law.
The UK, Denmark, France, Greece and Slovenia issued a joint statement asking Israel “to urgently reverse this decision and not to implement” the plan, saying it violates international law.
In a separate statement, the foreign ministers of Spain, Iceland, Ireland, Luxembourg, Malta, Norway, Portugal and Slovenia warned that Israel seizing Gaza City would be “a major obstacle to implementing the two-state solution, the only path towards a comprehensive, just and lasting peace”.
Israel to ‘finish the job’ in Gaza
Despite the international backlash and rumours of dissent from Israeli military top brass, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has remained defiant over the plan to seize Gaza’s largest urban centre, which was approved by Israel’s security cabinet on Friday.
“The timeline that we set for the action is fairly quickly,” Netanyahu told a news conference in Jerusalem on Sunday. “I don’t want to talk about exact timetables, but we’re talking in terms of a fairly short timetable because we want to bring the war to an end.”
“This is the best way to end the war and the best way to end it speedily,” he said. “We will do so by first enabling the civilian population to safely leave the combat areas to designated safe zones.”
While the prime minister stressed that these “safe zones” would be given “ample food, water, and medical care”, guards at the controversial Israel- and United States-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), purportedly established to deliver aid to the starving Palestinian population, have routinely opened fire on the aid seekers, killing dozens at a time.
Asked about the growing criticism targeting his cabinet’s decision, Netanyahu said the country was prepared to fight alone. “We will win the war, with or without the support of others,” he said.
Hamas released a statement responding to Netanyahu’s claim that Israel did not intend to occupy Gaza but “liberate” it from the Palestinian group.
The group said the use of the term “liberation” was an attempt to distort the reality of occupation “that will not cover up the crime of extermination, killing, and systematic destruction for more than 22 months”.
Hamas added that it constituted a “desperate attempt to exonerate” Israel after it killed more than 61,400 Palestinians, including more than 18,000 children.
Israel’s Deputy Ambassador to the UN Jonathan Miller fired back at Hamas at the UNSC session, saying the group was “exploiting” the captives and Gaza’s population to “maintain its position, benefiting from attempts to pressure Israel and from the willingness of some countries to recognise a Palestinian state”.
The United States, a veto-wielding permanent member of the UNSC, has so far shielded its staunch ally from any practical measures of UN censure. Netanyahu’s office said the prime minister spoke with US President Donald Trump about its plan, without elaborating on the outcome of the conversation.
Speaking to Fox News, the US vice president said Washington neither endorsed nor rejected Israel’s decision to seize Gaza City and the entire Gaza Strip at large. “Obviously, there are a lot of downsides and upsides”, JD Vance said.
Netanyahu’s plan also received domestic criticism, with opposition leader Yair Lapid saying its implementation would mean that “the hostages will die, soldiers will die, the economy will collapse and our international standing will crash.”
Israel’s Channel 12 reported it will cost billions of dollars within several months, increasing the country’s deficit by 2 percent and leading to widespread budget cuts in areas such as healthcare, education, and welfare.
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