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Relatives and loved ones of Palestinians, who lost their lives in an Israeli attack on the ez-Zeytun neighborhood, mourn the deceased as the bodies are being taken to El Ehli Baptist Hospital for funeral in eastern Gaza City, Gaza on August 6, 2025. [Khames Alrefi – Anadolu Agency]
The United Nations said on Thursday it opposes expanding the Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip.
Farhan Haq, Deputy Spokesman for the UN Secretary-General, said in New York: “We stand firmly against any escalation of the conflict. It’s already been extremely ruinous.”
He noted that the fighting has already claimed “more than 60,000 people” over nearly two years of war.
Haq warned of “the prospect of huge levels of humanitarian suffering, including potential starvations that could worsen if the conflict gets worse.”
His remarks came as Israel’s security cabinet convened later that day to discuss further steps in the Gaza war.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reiterated his support for the full occupation of Gaza, despite opposition from military leaders, amid concerns that intensifying the fighting could endanger the remaining hostages held by Hamas.
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Israeli opposition leader and parliament (Knesset) member Yair Lapid in Tel Aviv on December 21, 2024,[ Jack GUEZ / AFP /Getty Images]
Israeli opposition leaders on Friday condemned the government’s decision to occupy Gaza City, calling it a politically motivated disaster that endangers lives and undermines Israel’s security, Anadolu reports.
Opposition leader Yair Lapid accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of capitulating to the extremist demands of far-right ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich.
The criticism from Lapid, head of the Yesh Atid party, comes after Israel’s Security Cabinet approved a plan by Netanyahu to occupy Gaza City.
“In complete contradiction to the opinion of the military and security ranks, without considering the erosion and exhaustion of the fighting forces, Ben Gvir and Smotrich dragged Netanyahu into a move that will take months,” said Lapid.
He added that this will “lead to the death of the hostages, the killing of many soldiers, cost tens of billions to the Israeli taxpayers, and lead to a political collapse.”
He warned that Israel will be “trapped in the field without a goal, without defining the picture of the day after, in a useless occupation that no one understands where it is leading.”
Avigdor Lieberman, head of the Yisrael Beiteinu party, warned that the Cabinet’s move goes against professional military advice.
“The decision made by the Cabinet, contrary to the professional stance of the chief of staff who warned of the many dangers such a move would bring, proves that life-and-death decisions are being made in opposition to security considerations and the war’s objectives,” he said.
“The Oct. 7 prime minister is once again sacrificing the security of Israeli citizens for the sake of his seat,” Lieberman added.
Yair Golan, the leader of the Democrats party, called the decision “a disaster for generations.”
“Its implication, a death sentence for the hostages and more bereaved families,” he warned.
“All of this is for reasons of political survival and messianic visions,” Golan said, emphasizing: “We must intensify the struggle. Toppling this government will save lives.”
Israel has been facing mounting outrage over its destructive war on Gaza, where more than 61,200 people have been killed since October 2023.
Last November, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.
Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its war on the enclave.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks during an event at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in Jerusalem on July 27, 2025. (Photo: Gil Cohen-Magen/AFP via Getty Images)
“They’re talking about occupying areas that are packed with so many people,” said one Palestinian civilian. “If they do that, there will be incalculable killing.”
Ahead of a meeting with his security ministers, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed once again Thursday that his government plans to take control of the entire Gaza Strip—”a direct assault on international law,” as one group said this week, and one that his own military leaders have opposed.
In an interview with Fox News, Netanyahu was asked whether his government aims to take over all of Gaza, 75% of which it now claims to control, as officials have stated this week.
“We intend to,” the prime minister said, saying his country would take control of the enclave “in order to assure our security, remove Hamas there, enable the population to be free of Gaza, and to pass it to civilian governance that is not Hamas and not anyone advocating the destruction of Israel.”
Netanyahu convened a security meeting after the interview, seeking approval for his plan to expand Israel’s offensive in Gaza to areas in the central part of the territory where hostages are believed to be held, which the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have largely avoided since it began bombarding Gaza in October 2023.
The assault has forcibly displaced nearly the entire population of 2.1 million Palestinians, killed more than 61,000, and injured more than 150,000 as Israel’s near-total blockade has pushed the enclave toward famine and starved to death nearly 200 people, including at least 96 children.
The prime minister did not delve into specifics about the plan, but claimed Israel does not “want to govern” Gaza.
“We don’t want to be there as a governing body,” he said. “We want to hand it over to Arab forces.”
IDF Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir has expressed opposition to the proposal, and three military officials toldThe New York Times Thursday that the military would prefer a new cease-fire deal rather than intensifying fighting.
Cease-fire talks between Hamas and Israel have recently hit a deadlock.
Setting up a system of occupation in Gaza like the one Israel controls in the West Bank would take “up to five years of sustained combat,” officials told the Times.
Muhammad Shehada, a visiting fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, explained how Netanyahu and his Cabinet, including Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, likely plan to carry out “the final phase of the genocide” in Gaza, having recently set aside funds “for winning the war” in the enclave.
“Israel will move to annihilate the three remaining areas that haven’t been wiped out fully yet: Gaza City, Deir Al-Balah, and the central refugee camps (i.e. Nuseirat),” said Shehada. “Those three areas have been heavily bombed, invaded by the IDF, shelled nonstop but they have not been depopulated and fully razed to the ground like Rafah, Khan Younis, Jabaliya, Beit Hanoun, etc.”
Netanyahu just declared plans to fully occupy all of Gaza, 2 days after his Finance Minister quietly allocated 3 billion shekels for a Gaza "security box"
This is the final phase of the genocide! Israel will move to annihilate the 3 remaining areas that haven't been wiped out… pic.twitter.com/q12l76tXRZ
Palestinian-American analyst Yousef Munayyer denounced Netanyahu’s stated plan as “stupid, criminal, and horrifying.”
Palestinians have expressed fears this week that the latest Israeli proposal would kill far more civilians in Gaza as the IDF moves into areas where hundreds of thousands of people have been forced to move.
“They’re talking about occupying areas that are packed with so many people,” Mukhlis al-Masri, a 34-year-old Palestinian who fled to Khan Younis from his home in northern Gaza, told the Times. “If they do that, there will be incalculable killing. The situation will be more dangerous than anyone can imagine.”
Mairav Zonszein, a senior analyst on Israel at the International Crisis Group, said Netanyahu’s comments on Thursday included “a slip, but a revealing one”: that Israel wants to “enable the population to be free of Gaza” following the IDF’s decimation of the enclave.
Netanyahu said "enable the population to be free of Gaza." That clearly a slip, but a revealing one, so far as Israel's destruction of Gaza and its people has indeed dislocated them from life in Gaza. https://t.co/8yBlVGeRlX
“Netanyahu’s threat to ‘take control’ of all of Gaza is like his threat in 2020 to annex the West Bank,” said Zonszein. “Israel already controls and destroyed most of Gaza, and already de facto annexed the West Bank. So while Palestinians will suffer more, Israeli strategy hasn’t changed one bit.”
Keir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone object to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza’s hospitals and universities,mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel.
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Palestinians inspect the damage following the Israeli attacks on a health facility belonging to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) in the Sheikh Ridan neighborhood of Gaza City, Gaza on August 6, 2025. [Dawoud Abo Alkas – Anadolu Agency]
The Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem released a comprehensive report on 27 July describing the Israeli war on Gaza as genocide. However, the delay in publishing such an indictment is troubling and adds to an existing problem of politically motivated decision-making processes that have, in their own right, prolonged the ongoing Israeli war crimes.
The report accused Israel of committing genocide, a conclusion reached after a detailed analysis of the military campaign’s intent, the systematic destruction of civilian life, and the government-engineered famine. This finding is significant because it adds to the massive body of legal and testimonial evidence affirming the Palestinian position that Israel’s actions in Gaza constitute a genocide.
Moreover, the fact that B’Tselem is an Israeli organization is doubly important. It represents an insider’s indictment of the horrific massacres and the government-engineered famine in the Strip, directly challenging the baseless argument that accusing Israel of genocide is an act of antisemitism.
Western media were particularly interested in this report, despite the fact that numerous first-hand Palestinian reports and investigations are often ignored or downplayed. This double standard continues to feed into a chronic media problem in its perception of Palestine and Israel.
Claims by Palestinians of Israeli war crimes have historically been ignored by mainstream media or academia. Whether the Zionist militia’s massacre of Tantura in 1948, the actual number of Palestinians and Lebanese killed in the massacres of Sabra and Shatila in Lebanon in 1982, or the events resulting in the Jenin massacre in the West Bank in 2002, the media has frequently ignored the Palestinian account. It often gains a degree of validation only if it is backed by Israeli or Western voices.
The latest B’Tselem report is no exception. But another question must be asked: why did it take nearly two years for B’Tselem to reach such an obvious conclusion? Israeli rights groups, in particular, have far greater access to the conduct of the Israeli army, the statements of politicians, and Hebrew media coverage than any other entity. Such a conclusion, therefore, should have been reached in a matter of two months, not two years.
This kind of intentional delay has so far defined the position of many international institutions, organisations, and individuals whose moral authority would have helped Palestinians establish the facts of the genocide globally much earlier.
For example, despite the ICJ’s historic ruling on 26 January 2024, that determined that there are plausible grounds for South Africa’s accusation of Israel of committing genocide, the court is still unable, or unwilling, to produce a conclusive ruling. A definitive ruling would have been a significant pressure card on Israel to end its mass killing in Gaza.
Instead, for now, the ICJ expects Israel to investigate itself, a most unrealistic expectation at a time when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promises his extremist ministers that Israel will encourage the ethnic cleansing of Gaza.
The same indictment of intentional and politicised delays can be attributed to the International Criminal Court. While it issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and his former defense minister on November 21, 2024, no concrete action has been taken. Instead, it is the Chief Prosecutor of the court, Karim Khan, who finds himself attacked by the US government and media for having the courage to follow through on the investigation.
Individuals, too, especially those who have been associated with ‘revolutionary’ politics, the likes of Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Bernie Sanders, among others, have been reluctant to act. On 22 March 2024, Ocasio-Cortez refused to use the term genocide in Gaza, going as far as claiming that, while she saw an “unfolding genocide,” she was not yet ready to use the term herself.
Sanders, on the other hand, who has spoken out repeatedly and strongly against Netanyahu, describing him in an interview with CNN on 31 July as a “disgusting liar,” has had repeated moral lapses since the start of the war. When the term genocide was used by many, far less ‘radical’ politicians, Sanders doubled down during a lecture at a university in Ireland. He said that the word genocide “makes him queasy,” and he urged people to be “careful about it”.
These are not simply lost opportunities or instances of moral equivocation. They have had a profound and direct impact on Israel’s behavior. The timely intervention of governments, international institutions, high courts, media, and human rights groups would have fundamentally changed the dynamics of the war. Such collective pressure could have forced Israel and its allies to end the war, potentially saving thousands of lives.
Delays born of political calculation and fear of retribution have given Israel the critical space it needed to carry out its genocide. Israel is actively exploiting this lack of legal and moral clarity to persist in its mass slaughter of Palestinians.
This must change. The Palestinian perspective, their suffering, and their truths must be respected and honored without needing validation from Israeli or other sources. The Palestinian voice and their rights must be truly centered, not as an academic cliché or political jargon, but as an undeniable, everyday reality.
As for those who have delayed their verdict regarding the Israeli genocide, no rationale can possibly absolve them. They will be judged by history and by the desperate pleas of Gaza’s mothers and fathers, who tried and failed to save their children from the Israeli killing machine and the world’s collective silence or inaction.
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Keir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone object to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza’s hospitals and universities,mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel.Vote Labour for Genocide.
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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu chairs meeting as the Israeli Security Cabinet gather to approve a cease-fire agreement and a prisoner swap deal with Hamas, in West Jerusalem on January 17, 2025. [Photo by Koby Gideon (GPO)/Handout/Anadolu via Getty Images.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has decided to fully occupy the Gaza Strip and expand military operations in the enclave, local media said on Monday evening.
“The die is cast — we are going for a full occupation of the Gaza Strip,” a senior official close to Netanyahu was quoted as saying by the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper.
“There will be operations even in areas where hostages are being held. If the IDF (army) chief of staff doesn’t agree, he should resign.”
Israeli Channel 12 said the decision signals a major shift in Israel’s Gaza strategy, with operations now expected in densely populated areas, including central refugee camps.
The public broadcaster KAN, citing ministers who recently spoke with Netanyahu, said the premier decided to broaden military operations in Gaza despite opposition from the security establishment.
Yedioth Ahronoth claimed that US President Donald Trump had given Netanyahu a “green light” to proceed with the expanded assault.
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Keir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone object to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza’s hospitals and universities,mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel.Genocide denier and Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that UK air force support has been essential in Israel’s mass-murdering genocide. Includes URLs https://www.declassifieduk.org/keir-starmers-100-spy-flights-over-gaza-in-support-of-israel/ and https://youtu.be/O74hZCKKdpAUK Labour Party government ministers Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves explain that they are partners complicit in Israel’s Gaza genocide. The UK has provided Israel with arms, military and air force support. They explain that they don’t do gas chambers but do do forced marches, starvation, destroy hospitals, mass-murders of journalists and healthcare workers.
