“At this point, we are fully in control of 60 percent of the territory of the Gaza Strip,” Netanyahu said during a conference hosted by the pre-military Ein Prat leadership academy.
“My directive is to get to… 70 percent,” he added.
When audience members shouted in support of full Israeli control over Gaza, Netanyahu replied: “We’re going in order. First 70 percent… we’ll start with that.”
(May 25, 2026)
As part of the October 2025 deal, Israeli troops withdrew to the “yellow line” that runs roughly parallel to Gaza’s coastline and cuts off large chunks of territory at the northern and southern ends of the enclave, giving Israel control of 53% of the Gaza Strip. Since then, they have encroached further west and now effectively control over 60% of the territory.
According to Hadash MK Ayman Odeh: “It is expected of every person to understand that this move by Netanyahu is intended for one purpose: that you talk about it… and not talk about the execution in Jenin by Ben Gvir’s platoons, not about the targeted elimination of the two children on Sunday in Gaza, not about the regime coup, not about the budget that will harm each and every one of you, not about the political violence, not about the ethnic cleansing, not about the unbearable crime and murder in Arab society, and not about the economic and social situation that’s at an unprecedented low…that you talk about the ‘pardon’ that is imagined, but that you do not talk about the abandonment, the destruction, or about the simple fact that Netanyahu is a war criminal, and should stand trial in The Hague”.
Protesters have rallied outside the home of Israeli President Isaac Herzog, demanding he reject Prime Minister Netanyahu‘s request for a pardon on corruption charges.
The move has divided his political opponents as well as the Israeli people.
„Faced with the security challenges and political opportunities currently facing the State of Israel, I am committed to doing everything in my power to heal the rifts, achieve unity among the people, and restore trust in the state‘s systems, and I expect all heads of state agencies to do the same.“
Netanyahu faces charges of fraud, bribery and breach of trust, to which he has entered a plea of „not guilty“
Trump also called for a pardon for Netanyahu during a speech to Israel’s parliament last month, when he made a brief visit to promote his ceasefire plan for the war in Gaza.
In Wednesday’s letter to President Isaac Herzog, Trump called the corruption case “political, unjustified prosecution”.
Commercial satellite images show the Israeli military building up troops and equipment near the border with Gaza that would support a possible new ground invasion of the Palestinian enclave, according to three U.S. officials and a former official who viewed the imagery.
The images show troop movements and formations that the four sources recognized as signs of an imminent major ground operation.
The Security Cabinet convened at 6 p.m. at the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem for the debate and a subsequent vote. The session is scheduled to last until 11 p.m. but expected to last well into the night.
“We don‘t want to be there as a governing body,” he said. “We want to hand it over to Arab forces that will govern it properly without threatening us and giving Gazans a good life.”
It would mark a stunning escalation of the nearly 22-month war in the territory that has already been largely destroyed and where experts say famine is unfolding. It would put the lives of countless Palestinians and about 20 living hostages at risk, and deepen Israel‘s already stark international isolation.
It would also face fierce opposition within Israel: Families of the hostages would consider it a virtual death sentence, and much of the security establishment is also reportedly opposed to an open-ended occupation that would bog down and further strain the army after nearly two years of regional wars.
Trump was asked whether he‘d support a full Israeli occupation of Gaza as Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu has suggested. The president sidestepped, saying only that everything beyond food aid is „pretty much up to Israel.“
“Well, I don‘t know what the suggestion is. I know that we have, we are there now trying to get people fed,” Trump said.
Driving the news: Witkoff flew in from Miami to meet Trump for dinner on Monday, the sources say, fresh off a visit last week to Israel and Gaza.
A U.S. official said it was decided that the Trump administration will „take over“ management of the humanitarian effort in Gaza because Israel isn‘t handling it adequately.
The official didn‘t say what the U.S. role would actually entail, but said Gulf countries like Qatar will contribute funds, while Jordan and Egypt will also likely be involved.
Negotiations for a ceasefire and hostage release deal, which began in Doha following the confrontation with Iran, have been stalled for some time, and Ynet has learned Monday evening that U.S. President Donald Trump has given Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a green light to launch a more aggressive military operation against Hamas in Gaza.
The U.S. should not be complicit in or use ANY governmental, American taxpayer resources to aid and abet what amounts to the ethnic cleansing of Palestinian civilians from Gaza.
We cannot stand for this.
David Barnea, the director of Israel‘s Mossad spy agency, held meetings in Washington this week seeking help from US officials to convince countries to take hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who Israel plans to ethnically cleanse from Gaza, Axios reported on 19 July.
According to two sources, the Israeli spy chief told White House envoy Steve Witkoff that Israel has been in talks with Ethiopia, Indonesia, and Libya to accept Palestinians as refugees.
More than 17,000 children have been reported killed over the past 20 months of bombardment by Israel. But that figure only scratches the surface of the suffering being inflicted.
Israel is blocking 6,000 UNRWA trucks from entering Gaza while children die of hunger. The world can still prevent further catastrophe if it chooses to act.
What do you need to know about Israel‘s plan to herd 600,000 Palestinians into a special camp at Gaza‘s southern border with Egypt, which the Netanyahu government calls a „humanitarian city“?
According to Haaretz, the plan involves the construction of 3,412 housing units across 12 square kilometres, north and west of the Ma’ale Adumim settlement, which is illegal under international law.
The Israeli government has just put forward one of the most brazenly genocidal schemes in modern memory—and unless we act immediately, the world will once again let it happen.
As reported in Haaretz, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz is proposing to force some 600,000 Palestinians—and eventually the entire population of Gaza—into a fenced-in “humanitarian city” to be built on the ruins of Rafah in southern Gaza. The plan is to “screen” the population, separate out alleged Hamas members, and then pressure the remaining civilians—men, women, and children—to “voluntarily” leave Gaza for another country. Which country? That hasn’t even been determined. The point isn’t relocation—it’s erasure. This reflects a long-standing goal among many Israelis, especially on the right, to take full control of Gaza and clear it of Palestinians.
(July 10, 2025)
While announcing the sanctions on Wednesday, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio charged Albanese with waging a “campaign of political and economic warfare against the United States and Israel”.
The UN rapporteur hit back on Thursday, noting that the atrocities being committed in Gaza were not just down to “the unrelinquished territorial ambitions of Israel” and the backing of its supporters but also “companies who are profiting from it”.
Last week, she released a report mapping the corporations aiding Israel in the displacement of Palestinians and its genocidal war on Gaza in breach of international law.
On 9 July, UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini posted on X (previously known as Twitter) that “Israeli officials state they plan yet another mass displacement of the Palestinian people in Gaza towards Rafah. This would de-facto create massive concentration camps at the border with Egypt for the Palestinians, displaced over and over across generations. This would also deprive Palestinians of any prospects for a better future in their homeland.”
According to OCHA, people are confined to ever-shrinking spaces, with over 86 per cent of the Gaza Strip now within the Israeli-militarized zone, under displacement orders, or where these overlap. The UN estimates that over 725,000 people have been displaced yet again since the breakdown of the ceasefire.
Juliette Touma, UNRWA‘s director of communications, told Al Jazeera English that the agency “categorically refuses any forced displacement of any population.”
“If it happens, it will push further tens of thousands of people who have already been displaced many, many times during this current war but also over the generations, further south and from there into the unknown,” Touma said.
In March, in the wake of the collapse of an earlier ceasefire, Katz had issued a warning to Gaza residents that, if they didn’t release the remaining hostages and “remove Hamas” themselves, Israel would act with “unprecedented force.” Other “options” were possible for Gaza’s population, Katz suggested, including “relocation to other countries,” while threatening “complete destruction and devastation.”
At the time, Meron Rapoport, a left-wing Israeli journalist, parsed the statements coming from prominent lawmakers and officials, as well as connected right-wing Israeli journalists, and came up with this somewhat prescient conclusion: “Israel is preparing to forcibly displace the entire population of Gaza — through a combination of evacuation orders and intense bombardment — into an enclosed and possibly fenced-off area,” he wrote on April 1, suggesting the goal was tantamount to the creation of a large “concentration camp.”
(July 8, 2025)
Es ist der Dienstagmorgen des 8. Juli 2025, Israel hat gerade angekündigt, ein Lager in Rafah zu errichten, in das es sämtliche Bewohner des Gazastreifens „aufnehmen“ will – um sie dann nicht mehr herauszulassen. Zuerst 600.000, dann alle Palästinenser. Das berichtete die israelische Zeitung Haaretz am Montagabend. Und was titeln die Leitmedien in Deutschland am Dienstag?
….
(July 9, 2025)
The Foreign Secretary said: “The statements that you’ve just described from defence minister [Israel Katz] relate very much to where the IDF are located and you’ll understand that if they’re, if what you describe is true then I think that would be a big sticking point for getting that ceasefire.”
Describing the issue as one of Israel’s “location” in Gaza, he added: “I suspect the statement from defence minister Katz is in relation to that and I suspect if indeed he is insistent of that position then it would be very hard to see how we get that ceasefire because there is an acute discussion about the degree to which the IDF withdraws from Gaza.”
(July 8, 2025)
„It is all about population transfer to the southern tip of the Gaza Strip in preparation for deportation outside the strip,“ he told The Guardian. „While the government still calls the deportation ‚voluntary,‘ people in Gaza are under so many coercive measures that no departure from the strip can be seen in legal terms as consensual. When you drive someone out of their homeland that would be a war crime, in the context of a war. If it‘s done on a massive scale like he plans, it becomes a crime against humanity.“