Jeremy Bowen: Netanyahu's plan for Gaza risks dividing Israel, killing Palestinians and horrifying world.

• Jeremy Bowen: Netanyahu's plan for Gaza risks dividing Israel, killing Palestinians and horrifying world.

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has told Israelis that "we are on the eve of an intense entry into Gaza." Israel would, he said, capture territory and hold it: "They will not enter and come out."

The new offensive is calculated, according to the spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Brigadier-General Effie Defrin, to bring back the remaining hostages. After that, he told Israeli radio, "comes the collapse of the Hamas regime, its defeat, its submission".

The offensive will not start, Israel says, until after Donald Trump's trip to Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar next week. Assuming Trump does not dissuade Israel from going ahead, Israel will need a military and political miracle to pull off the results described by Brig-Gen Defrin.

It is more likely that the offensive will sharpen everything that makes the Gaza war so controversial. The war, starting with the Hamas attacks of 7 October 2023, has taken the conflict between Palestinians and Israelis to a point as dangerous as any in its long history. Prolonging the war divides Israelis, kills even more Palestinian civilians and horrifies millions around the world, including many who describe themselves as friends of Israel.

While the IDF attacks Hamas in Gaza, the government's plan is that its soldiers will force some or all of the more than two million Palestinian civilians in Gaza into a small area in the ruins of the south. Humanitarian aid would be distributed, perhaps by contractors including American private security firms. The United Nations humanitarian agencies have said they will not cooperate, condemning the plan as a violation of the principles of humanitarian aid.

They have also warned of starvation in Gaza caused by Israel's decision more than two months ago to block all humanitarian deliveries. Israel's blockade, which continues, has been widely condemned, not just by the UN and Arab countries. ivilians, which amounts to a war crime.

Countries and organisations that believe Israel systematically violates its legal obligations, committing a series of war crimes, will scour any new offensive for more evidence. Extreme language used by ministers will have been noted by the South African lawyers arguing the case at the International Court of Justice alleging Israeli genocide in Gaza.

Much of it has come from ultra-nationalists who prop up the Netanyahu government. They see the new offensive as another step towards expelling Palestinians from Gaza and replacing them with Jewish settlers.

One of the most vocal extremists, Bezalel Smotrich, the finance minister said that in six months Gaza would be "totally destroyed". Palestinians in the territory would be "despairing, understanding that there is no hope and nothing to look for in Gaza, and will be looking for relocation to begin a new life in other places".

"Relocation", the word used by Smotrich, will be seen both by his supporters and political enemies as another reference to "transfer", an idea discussed since the earliest days of Zionism to force Arabs out of the land between the River Jordan and the Mediterranean Sea.

Netanyahu's Israeli critics say prolonging the war with a new offensive instead of ending it with a ceasefire is about his own political survival, not Israel's safety or the return of its hostages. In the days after the 7 October attacks there were lines of cars hurriedly parked outside military bases as Israelis rushed to volunteer for reserve duty to fight Hamas.

Now thousands of them (some estimates from the Israeli left are higher) are refusing to do any more reserve duty. They argue the prime minister is continuing the war because if he doesn't his hard right will bring down the government and bring on the day of reckoning for mistakes and miscalculations Netanyahu made that gave Hamas an opportunity to attack.

Inside Israel, the sharpest criticism of the planned offensive has come from the families of the hostages who fear they have been abandoned by the government that claims to be rescuing them. Hamas still has 24 living hostages in the Gaza Strip, according to Israel, and is holding the bodies of another 35 of the 251 taken on 7 October. The Netanyahu government has claimed repeatedly that only as much military pressure as possible will get the survivors home and return the bodies of the dead to their families.

In reality, the biggest releases of hostages have come during ceasefires. The last ceasefire deal, which Trump insisted Israel sign in the final days of the Biden administration, included a planned second phase which was supposed to lead to the release of all the hostages and a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.

• Hamas says Gaza talks pointless while Israel continues 'starvation war'

A senior Hamas official has said the armed group is not interested in further talks on a new Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal while Israel continues what he called its "starvation war".

Israel cut off all humanitarian aid from entering Gaza nine weeks ago and later resumed its military offensive, saying it was putting pressure on Hamas to release hostages.

But Bassem Naim said there was "no point in any negotiations" while the blockade remained in place.

His comments came after Israel's security cabinet approved an expanded offensive which could see the forced displacement of most of Gaza's 2.1 million population and occupation of all of the Palestinian territory indefinitely.

Israel also intends to replace the current aid delivery and distribution system with one channelled through private companies and military hubs.

The UN's humanitarian office has rejected that idea, saying it does not live up to fundamental humanitarian principles and "appears to be a deliberate attempt to weaponize the aid".

On Monday, the Israeli military's spokesman said its expanded ground offensive in Gaza would seek to bring home the remaining 59 hostages, up to 24 of whom are believed to be alive, and achieve the "dismantling and decisive defeat of the Hamas regime".

The operation would take place on a "wide scale" and involve "the movement of the majority of the Gaza Strip's population - in order to protect them in a Hamas-free zone", he added.

An Israeli official briefed the media that the offensive would also include "holding the territories, moving the Gazan population south for its defence, [and] denying Hamas the ability to distribute humanitarian supplies".

A second official said it would not be implemented until after US President Donald Trump's visit to the region next week, providing what he called "a window of opportunity" to Hamas to agree a new ceasefire and hostage release deal.

Bassem Naim's comments on Tuesday seemed to counter that.

"There is no point in any negotiations or engagement with new proposals while [Israel] continues its starvation war against our people in the Gaza Strip - a war that the international community, including UN institutions, has deemed a war crime in itself," he said.

Hamas also put out a separate statement telling Israeli ministers that their approval of the expanded offensive represented "an explicit decision to sacrifice" Israeli hostages.

There was no immediate response from the Israeli government, but far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich told a conference that an Israeli victory in Gaza would see the territory "entirely destroyed" and its residents "concentrated" in the south, from where they would "start to leave in great numbers to third countries".

UN Secretary General António Guterres warned that expanded Israeli ground operations and a prolonged military presence would "inevitably lead to countless more civilians killed and the further destruction of Gaza".

France's Foreign Minister, Jean-Noël Barrot, said Israel's plans were "unacceptable" and that its government was "in violation of humanitarian law".

In Washington, Trump said the US would help supply food to people in Gaza, without going into details.

"People are starving and we're going to help them get some food," he said. "Hamas is making it impossible because they're taking everything that's brought in."

Israel cut off all deliveries of aid and other supplies on 2 March and resumed its offensive on 18 March after the collapse of a two-month ceasefire that saw 33 Israeli hostages released in exchange for about 1,900 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.

Israel has also accused Hamas of stealing and storing aid - an allegation the group has denied.

But aid agencies have warned that mass starvation is imminent unless the blockade ends.

• Israel intercepts missile launched from Yemen, Houthis claim responsibility.

Israel's military said on Friday it had intercepted a missile launched from Yemen towards Israeli territory, an attack for which Yemen's Houthi forces claimed responsibility.

The incident came days after Oman said it mediated a ceasefire deal between the U.S. and the Houthis, with the Yemeni group saying the accord did not include close U.S. ally Israel.

The Iran-aligned militia group claimed responsibility for Friday's attack, saying it fired a ballistic missile towards Ben Gurion Airport near Tel Aviv, according to the group's military spokesperson Yahya Saree.

Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said after the military reported the missile launch that Israel would respond forcefully in Yemen and "wherever necessary", describing the Houthi missiles as "Iranian".

President Donald Trump announced on Tuesday that the U.S. would stop bombing the Houthis in Yemen as the group had agreed to stop attacking U.S. ships.

But the Houthis have continued to fire missiles and drones towards Israel, most of which the Israeli military says it has intercepted, without casualties or serious damage occurring.

The Houthis have attacked numerous vessels in the Red Sea, disrupting global trade, in a campaign that they say is aimed at showing solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza. Israel has been fighting a war in Gaza since a deadly raid by Palestinian militant group Hamas into southern Israel in October 2023.

• Aid groups voice alarm as US pushes Israeli plan for Gaza assistance.

Aid groups have voiced alarm at US moves to pressure them into accepting an Israeli proposal to resume limited humanitarian assistance to the war-ravaged territory under strictly controlled conditions.

The Trump administration has attempted to strong-arm international agencies – including the United Nations’ World Food Programme (WFP) – into accepting Israel’s stringent rules for resuming deliveries, according to sources familiar with the discussions and news reports.

A two-month blockade has left the coastal enclave’s 2.3 million inhabitants facing the prospect of starvation. The blockade was imposed by the Israel Defense Forces in March after the collapse of a ceasefire to the conflict that broke out after Hamas’s October 2023 attack that killed about 1,200 people in Israel. So far, more than 52,000 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed in Israel’s military response.

Under the auspices of a newly established Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), which is based in Geneva, aid would be delivered to four “hubs”, where recipients would have to go to collect it under the watchful gaze of private US security contractors, who would use facial recognition technology to vet who receives it.

Israel insists the stringent measures are necessary to prevent aid being stolen or diverted to Hamas, although some assistance organizations have said they have seen no evidence of such practices.

Aid groups have so far refused to participate in the scheme, fearing it violates “fundamental humanitarian principles” and breaches international law.

Some have privately voiced concerns about potential “complicity in war crimes because of how the aid will be distributed”, according to one person in close contact with assistance organizations, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

“There is a concern that this aid plan risks enabling war crimes related to forced displacement, starvation and internment,” the person said. “This is a scheme to make it seem like this is about aid, but what it’s really about is entrenching military occupation of Gaza.

Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said this week that the Gaza population would be moved “for its own protection” under an intensive new Israeli military offensive. Israeli officials have indicated a plan to concentrate the entire population in the south of the strip.

Opposition has been firm even as some organizations, including World Central Kitchen and the WFP, have admitted that an inability to replenish supplies has left them unable to continue feeding the population.

Even if aid is resumed, some groups say, the conditions Israel is stipulating will prevent it reaching many of those in need.

“If you centralize, privatize and militarize aid delivery through this proposed hub model, it means that people will be excluded from getting humanitarian assistance,” said Joseph Belliveau, executive director of MedGlobal, which has been providing medical assistance – including to severely malnourished children – at 16 sites in Gaza

“People simply won’t be able to come to these distribution sites, either because of fear, logistical constraints, or distance. Even more importantly, many will be reluctant to come to centralized sites that are overseen by armed personnel, and given the way that that Israel has fought this war with incredible numbers of civilian casualties.

“The best thing that the US and Israeli authorities can do is to lift the restrictions and allow us to … work safely [and] protect medical sites [and] humanitarian workers.”

But with living conditions growing increasingly dire, the Trump administration is pressing humanitarian outfits to accept Israel’s terms. US officials have reportedly met the UN and aid groups this week, even threatening to slash the WFP’s budget – which Washington partly funds – if it refuses to accept, according to the Times of Israel.

Donald Trump told reporters in the White House on Monday that “the people of Gaza are starving and we’re going to help them get some food”. His Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, met members of the UN security council on Wednesday to discuss the Israeli plan, according to the Washington Post.

Trump has previously proposed having US taking ownership of Gaza and converting it into a “Riviera”, a scheme which would involve relocating its population to other countries.

A state department spokesperson said Trump was seeking “creative solutions” that would “protect Israel, leave Hamas empty-handed, and help Gazans”.

“We welcome moves to quickly get urgent food aid into Gaza in a way that prevents it from falling into the hands of terrorists, such as Hamas,” the spokesperson said. “We support a plan to get in aid now and urge others to do so as well.

“Endless press releases and Hamas appeasement haven’t delivered food, medicine, or shelter to those who need it. This is a new approach with one focus: get help to people NOW.”

KAYNAKÇA:

• BBC. (2025) Jeremy Bowen: Netanyahu's plan for Gaza risks dividing Israel, killing Palestinians and horrifying world.

Erişim: https://www.bbc.com

• BBC. (2025) Hamas says Gaza talks pointless while Israel continues 'starvation war'.

Erişim: https://www.bbc.com

• Reuters. (2025) Israel intercepts missile launched from Yemen, Houthis claim responsibility.

Erişim: https://www.reuters.com

• The Guardian. (2025) Aid groups voice alarm as US pushes Israeli plan for Gaza assistance.

Erişim: https://www.theguardian.com