The Israeli security cabinet unanimously approved on Monday, May 5, a plan to seize control of the entire Gaza Strip and maintain its presence there through an expanded military operation called “Gideon’s Chariots.”
According to an Israeli defense official, Israel will move forward with the new military operation in the war-torn enclave if no deal regarding the release of Israeli captives is reached with Hamas by the end of US President Donald Trump’s visit to the West Asia region next week.
Israel claims that the objectives of the planned “Gideon’s Chariots” operation are to dismantle Hamas, and return the Israeli captives. However, the plan has sparked widespread criticism as it proposes a broader agenda of collective punishment against the civilian population in Gaza, and permanent occupation of the besieged strip.
Moreover, the operation would cause a massive wave of forced displacement. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a video message posted on X on Monday that the entire population of Gaza will be moved to the southern part of the vastly devastated strip, during the upcoming operation.
The approval of “Gideon’s Chariots” came one day after the chief of the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF), Eyal Zamir, announced that tens of thousands of Israeli reservists were called up in preparation for the operation.
“This week, we are sending tens of thousands of draft orders to our reserve personnel to intensify and expand our action in Gaza. We are increasing the pressure to return our people [held captive in Gaza] and defeat Hamas,” Zamir said.
Zamir added that the IOF “would operate in additional areas and destroy all of [Hamas’s] infrastructure above and below ground.”
Israel to further restrict Gaza aid deliveries after at least 57 Palestinians starved to death
Besides Israel’s plans to expand its military operation in Gaza, it revealed on Monday its intention to control the distribution of humanitarian aid within the besieged enclave, with the assistance of private US military contractors. Israel claimed that its proposed aid delivery system is designed to prevent Hamas from seizing the supplies.
Israel is trying to make control over aid distribution in the Gaza Strip a condition for lifting the blockade, which has been imposed since early March. The two-month total blockade has resulted in a famine, in which at least 57 Palestinians were starved to death, according to health officials in Gaza.
Meanwhile, the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) reported that over 9,000 children in Gaza were admitted for treatment for acute malnutrition so far this year.
Axios said in a report, that the UN agencies and aid groups operating in Gaza rejected the Israeli-US plan to establish a new aid delivery mechanism. They said that the proposed plan “contravenes fundamental humanitarian principles,” and would not enable the delivery of aid to the “less mobile and most vulnerable people.”
“It contravenes fundamental humanitarian principles and appears designed to reinforce control over life-sustaining items as a pressure tactic – as part of a military strategy. It is dangerous, driving civilians into militarized zones to collect rations, threatening lives, including those of humanitarian workers, while further entrenching forced displacement,” the heads of all UN agencies and Non Governmental Organizations operating in Gaza said in a joint statement on Sunday.
In this regard, Relief Web, a humanitarian information portal administered by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), said in a press release published on Sunday, that the Israeli plan “is nothing more than a new maneuver aimed at prolonging the comprehensive and illegal blockade imposed on the territory.
The website explained that the move “reintroduces starvation, only under a humanitarian façade this time, legitimizing its continued use as a weapon within the context of an ongoing genocide that has lasted more than 19 months.”
No sense in engaging in ceasefire talks amid hunger war: says Hamas in response to Israel’s plans
Commenting on Israel’s plans to intensify the aggression and the systematic starvation in the Gaza Strip, member of Hamas political bureau, Basem Naim, told AFP on Tuesday, May 6: “There is no sense in engaging in talks or considering new ceasefire proposals as long as the hunger war and extermination war continue in the Gaza Strip.”
Naim urged the international community to pressure the Netanyahu administration to end the “crimes of hunger, thirst, and killings” in Gaza.
Israel is intent on ethnically cleansing Palestinians through its proposed plans
While the Israeli government is once again using the eradication of Hamas as a pretext to escalate its genocidal aggression against the people of Gaza, and restrict their access to humanitarian aid, Israeli officials bluntly voice their aspirations to ethnically cleanse Palestinians and expel them from their homeland.
Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich stated on Tuesday that Gaza will be “completely destroyed” and its population will be concentrated south of the so-called Morag Axis as part of “Israel’s victory strategy.”
The Morag Axis was established in an area located between Rafah and Khan Younis in the southern Gaza strip, after being captured by the IOF in early April, with the aim of further dividing the territory.
