What is Israel's Plan for Gaza?

Tom and Patrick discuss Israel’s new Gaza strategy. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has set a controversial new goal - the full occupation of Gaza, starting with Gaza City.

His security cabinet has signed off on the first phase, but opposition is growing fast from the international community, and it seems from within Israel’s own military leadership.

There are warnings that the plan will deepen Gaza’s already grave humanitarian crisis. Can the plan be achieved militarily? What political calculations are driving it? And could it push the IDF to the limit?

Netanyahu defended his plan for Israel’s military to take over Gaza City as “the best way to end the war” despite calls from his domestic opposition for a general strike to demand a deal.

Addressing journalists in a rare live press conference on Sunday, Netanyahu said a security zone would be established near the Gaza border, with a civilian administration led by neither Hamas nor the Palestinian Authority, to live “in peace with Israel” and prevent “future terrorist incursions”.

Military expansion into Gaza’s two remaining Hamas strongholds, Gaza City and the central refugee camps where the militants are holding Israeli captives, was “the best way to end the war, and to speedily end the war”, the Israeli prime minister said.

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