Netanyahu Has Reportedly Decided to Fully Occupy Gaza

Abir Sultan/Pool Photo via AP

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has reportedly made the decision to fully occupy Gaza.

Amit Segal, Israel Channel 12’s chief political analyst, posted on X on Monday, “Senior official in Netanyahu’s office: The decision has been made — we’re going to occupy Gaza.” Segal, a right-leaning commentator, is one of Israel’s most influential and well-connected journalists. He also hosts the country’s version of Meet the Press. The Jerusalem Post, soon after, confirmed the reports via the Prime Minister’s Office.

Amichai Stein, the diplomatic correspondent for i-24 news, also reported, “The Prime Minister’s Office briefed this evening that a decision has been made by the PM for a full occupation of the Gaza Strip, including operations in areas where hostages are held, and conveyed a message to the Chief of Staff: if this does not suit him, you should resign.” “Chief of Staff” refers to Eyal Zamir, who has been the head of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) since March 2025.

Netanyahu has come under heavy criticism in recent months over his prolonging of the Israel-Hamas war, which has left tens of thousands of Palestinians dead and sparked a humanitarian crisis in Gaza as famine grips the region. Netanyahu and Hamas have both been accused of keeping the war going to maintain power, despite the Trump administration’s frequent calls for an immediate ceasefire.

Hamas continues to hold dozens of Israeli hostages who were taken on October 7, 2023, and has released two clips in recent days of hostages shown in dire physical health. Netanyahu denounced the “horrific videos” on Sunday and called them evidence that Hamas “does not want a deal.”

Netanyahu released a clip on Monday, promising to continue fighting while getting aid into Gaza. He began by accusing critics of a type of “blood libel” by claiming Israel is deliberately starving Gazans. “In the Middle Ages, all the massacres against Jews were preceded by horrible vilifications. The lies that were leveled against the Jews spread around the globe. We were poisoning the wells. We were carriers of disease. We slaughtered Christian children in order to drink their blood. And this spread from country to country and created massacre after massacre, culminating in the worst massacre of them all, the Holocaust, in which six million innocent Jews were led to the slaughter,” he began, adding:

Today, the Jewish state is facing similar vilifications. They lie about us. They say that we’re deliberately starving Palestinian children. That’s a bare-faced lie. Since the beginning of the war, we have let in almost two million tons of food. Two million tons of food for Palestinian civilians, Palestinian children—that’s been our policy. But in the last few months, this humanitarian aid has been interdicted by Hamas looting. They steal the food from their own people, but in the past few months that food has not been reaching the Palestinian civilians because Hamas is stealing it.

So we’ve decided to go around it. I’ve authorized the Israeli Air Force to airdrop humanitarian food and medical supplies to Palestinian civilians. We invited other countries to join these airdrops, and many have. We also designated safe corridors through which these trucks can travel without being looted by Hamas or endangered by combat activity. And we’re talking now to our American friends about further steps to alleviate any possibility of hunger or the appearance of hunger. We’re committed to doing this just as we’re committed to freeing Gaza from the tyranny of these terrorists. Many Gazans come to us and they say, “Help us be free, help us free of Hamas, of their terror, of their cruelty, of their tyranny.” And that’s what we will do.

Trump has acknowledged the starvation in Gaza and vowed to do more to get aid into Gaza, while expressing frustration with Hamas for not engaging with his negotiators. In late July, Trump accused Hamas of not wanting a ceasefire and said Israel would need to “finish the job.”

This is a developing story and has been updated.