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In the video published on social networks when military reservists throughout Israel began receiving notices from his call, Mr. Netanyahu said that the country’s main military officials had recreated what he called an “intensive” escalation of the 18 -month war.
“It’s time to launch the conclusive movements,” said Netanyahu, said the military officers told him, adding that the new campaign would help bring the hostages that are still carried out in Gaza. The prime minister said he believes that “we have not finished. We are before the finish line.”
The climbing followed more than two months in which Israel continued to block and bombarding the Gaza Strip while the high fire speaks to free the remaining hostages at a dead point. Israel has banned any humanitarian aid to Gaza in an effort to press Hamas to surrender, which leads to the help groups to denounce the growing deprivation among the Palestinians there.
The opponents of Mr. Netanyahu quickly criticized the expanded military campaign, saying that it would endanger the life of the removal hostages and that the dynamics that 18 months of war have caused. The critics of the prime minister, both inside and outside the country, have urged him to put an end to a conflict that begged when Hamas killed about 1,200 people in Israel on October 7, 2023, and tok about 250 hostages.
Israeli officials said that the offensive would slowly begin in the anticipation of the high fire negotiations that are ongoing before the Trump President Trump next week to the region for meetings in several Arab capitals. But officials said that if an agreement is not reached soon, the expanded land operation would begin seriously.
Mr. Netanyahu promised in the video that the decision to increase the fighting in Gaza does not mean that Israel has abandoned the hope of rescuing the reminiscent hostages.
“We will not give up with anyone,” he promised.
David Mencer, a government spokesman, described the plan as a renewed effort to increase the pressure on Hamas to free hostages and destroy all Hamas infrastructure, both undergoes and below the ground. He said the campaign demands the “celebration of territories” by Israeli soldiers for an indefinite period of time “to prevent Hamas from retiring.”
Mercer said that the intention was not a permanent occupation of Gaza, a scenario that would surely stimulate international objections, as well as the forced relocation of Palestinians of their homes in the north.
Effie Defrin, the Israeli military spokesman, said on a television that Israel’s operation will include “a broad attack, which implies moving most of the population of Gaza. This is for its protection in a clean area of Hamas.”
In the White House, Brian Hughes, a spokesman for the National Security Council, did not comment directly on the Israeli announcement, but said that Trump “remains committed to ensuring the immediate release of hostages and the end of the Hamas government in Gaza.” He added: “Hamas has the exclusive responsibility of this conflict and for the resumption of hostilities.”
But it was not clear how much of the announcement was mainly designed as a public exhibition of action by Mr. Netanyahu after a high fire collapsed in March. The so -called Israeli of the soldiers is seen as a message for supporters of the hard line of Mr. Netyahu, some of whom were dismayed that the military had not completed the task of eradicating Hamas. Promise a more intense phase of war could be a good domestic policy for him.
Nor is it obvious how additional combatants would fundamentally alter a dynamic observed during 18 months of war in which hundreds of thousands of soldiers have hit Hamas fighters, with the residents of Gaza trapped in the middle, but have failed to achieve Israel’s objectives to destroy the militant group or free all hostages.
As part of the Israeli offensive, Israel would move “the population of Gazán to the south for his own defense,” said Mence. The plan echoed the actions of Israel before in the war, when Israel ordered a massive evacuation of northern Gaza before its land invasion at the end of 2023.
An Israeli official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss operational planning, said the understanding was that the Israeli army would move to capture more territory beyond was already having, but the official consent at another point.
The cabinet also approved a new mechanism backed by Israeli to allow the distribution of humanitarian aid, he said. Israel has been criticized for its decision more than two months to block all humanitarian aid, including food, medicine and fuel, whose effect has been “catastrophic,” doctors say. Israel has argued that the aid block is legal and that Gaza still has enough available provisions.
Two reservists who spoke under anonymity because they were not authorized to comment to the media said they had reached call orders from June.
Eli Cohen, Israel’s Minister of Energy and a member of the Security Cabinet, said the reservists were called to implement a plan that would ensure that Hamas could never launch attacks against Israel.
“The destruction of the terrorist organization Hamas is not only an Israeli interest, but also an interest of the whole free world,” he said that “the cabinet unanimously decided to expand the operation in Gaza and now move towards the defeat of Hamas.”
The question is whether a return to that fighting child is a road map until the end of hostilities or simply an intensification of a deadly conflict with generating consequences for the Palestinians and Israeli hostages are still in the hands of Hamas.
Tamir Hayman, who served as Chief of Intelligence of the Israeli army for four years, said the attempts to pressure Hamas too much “exhausted” after more than a year and a half of war.
“Eliminating Hamas as a terrorist organization by military force is only very different,” said Hayman, who is now executive director of the Institute for National Security Studies, a group of experts in Tel Aviv. He said that Israel would be better to end the war with Hamas, which has moved significant and can be kept in control after the fight ends.
The Israeli army has not tried details about how reservists will be deployed. But two Israeli officials, who requested anonymity to comment on military plans, say it involves several brigades who take over the so -called operational superiority in various parts of Gaza.
The Trump administration has sought a new fire, but Hamas has demanded the end of the war and a withdrawal of the Israeli forces of Gaza, while Israel has insisted that Hamas disarms, that the group has scolded.
Israeli officials have said that they believe it was the power and intensity of their military campaign in Gaza last year that pressed Hamas to release some of the hostages and to accept a high fire in January.
Hours after the attacks of October 2023, Mr. Netanyahu ordered the mobilization of 360,000 reservists, which adds to the permanent army of the country of about 170,000 soldiers.
In the fight since then, more than 50,000 Palestinians have died, according to the Ministry of Health of Gaza, which does not distinguish between civil and military deaths. Around 130 hostages have released the Israeli leg and army has recovered the bodies of at least another 40. It is believed that around 24 hostages are still alive, according to the Israeli government.
Awad Abid, a 38 -year -old Jabaliya resident in northern Gaza, said Israeli ads had caused more despair among Palestinian residents of the enclave. The blockade of months on humanitarian had caused “hungry to enter each house,” he said.
“There is no more life here for anyone in Gaza,” said Abid, adding that Israeli hostages must be immediately released to put an end to the conflict.
When Israel and Hamas agreed to the top agreement of January, Mr. Netanyahu said the credit should go to the “painful blows that our heroic fighters have landed in Hamas.”
“This is exactly how the conditions for the turning point were created in their position and for the release of our hostages,” the duration of a national direction told.
But other voices, such as Yair Lapid, the leader of the opposition of Israel, have expressed serious doubts about the strategy. “I fear that the intensity of the fighting will dictate the fate of the hostages,” Lapid said on the radio of the Israeli army. “What is the objective? Why are they calling the reservists? I extend a regular service and everything without defining an objective, this is not how a war desires.”
In a statement on Monday, the organization that represents the families of the hostages urged the government not to expand the war.
“The expansion of military operations put all hostages at serious risk,” families said. “We implore our decision makers: prioritize hostages. Ensure an agreement. Treat them home, before it is too late.”
Natan Odenheimer” Johnatan Reiss and Gabby Sobelman Contributed reports.
