Israel claimed it will take over Gaza City, escalating its 22-month war with Hamas despite increased domestic and international outrage, NBC News reports.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu‘s office released a statement early Friday (August 8) morning announcing that the Israeli military “will prepare for taking control of Gaza City while distributing humanitarian assistance to the civilian population outside the combat zones,” noting that the Security Cabinet had approved his “proposal for defeating Hamas” in a post on X.
“A decisive majority of Security Cabinet ministers believed that the alternative plan that had been submitted to the Security Cabinet would neither achieve the defeat of Hamas nor the return of the hostages,” he continued in a followup post.
The Gaza City enclave has been run by Hamas since 2007 and Israel has publicly claimed that its war would not cease until all hostages taken in the October 7, 2023, attacks on an Israeli music festival were returned. Israel has also called for the eventual establishment of a yet-unnamed Arab authority to take over the Gaza Strip once it claims control.
Commercial satellite images obtained by NBC News showed the Israeli military building up troops and equipment near the Gaza border in relation to a potential ground invasion of the enclave. Israel believes about 20 of the 50 remaining hostages taken from the October 7, 2023 terror attacks — which resulted in a death toll of 1,200 — are still alive in Gaza.
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