LAST UPDATE | 5 Aug 2025

ISRAEL’S PRIME MINISTER Benjamin Netanyahu is preparing to unveil an updated Gaza military plan, with Israeli media reporting he would order the total occupation of the Palestinian territory.

Netanyahu is expected to meet security chiefs in Jerusalem today to discuss new orders, local media reported.

At the same time, Israel’s diplomats have convened a UN Security Council meeting in New York to highlight the plight of Israelis held in Gaza, after Hamas and Islamic Jihad released footage of some emaciated hostages. 

The timing of the Israeli security meeting has not been officially confirmed.

Israeli broadcaster Channel 12 said Netanyahu would meet the army chief of staff and the defence and army ministers.

A source in the Prime Minister’s Office told The Jerusalem Post that he will seek his cabinet’s approval for the full occupation of the Gaza Strip, including operations in areas where hostages are held.

Netanyahu has told ministers he will instruct the military on how “to achieve the three war objectives we have set”.

“Netanyahu wants the Israeli army to conquer the entire Gaza Strip,” said a report on public broadcaster Kan.

Netanyahu also said yesterday he would convene the cabinet later in the week to approve the new instructions.

“Several cabinet members who spoke with the prime minister confirmed that he has decided to extend the fight to areas where hostages might be held,” Kan reported.

The private daily Maariv declared: “The die is cast. We’re en route for the total conquest of Gaza.”

However, some major media outlets such as Channel 12 have questioned whether the rumoured expansion of military operations is merely a negotiating tactic, and whether Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir would oppose such a decision.

“The Chief of Staff is required to express his professional opinion clearly and unequivocally to the political leadership. I am convinced that he will do so,” Foreign Minister Gideon Saar wrote on X.

While the plan has not been officially confirmed, it has already drawn an angry response from the Palestinian Authority and Gaza’s Hamas government, which insisted it will not shift its position on ceasefire talks.

“The ball is in the hands of… (Israel) and the Americans,” senior Hamas official Husam Badran told news agency AFP, adding that the militant group wanted to “end the war and the famine”.

Netanyahu is facing mounting domestic and international pressure to bring the remaining hostages in Gaza home and allow much more aid into the starving territory.

Israel’s campaign in Gaza has killed at least 60,933 people, mostly civilians, according to the territory’s health ministry.

Today, Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi said Israel’s war on Gaza was a “systematic genocide to eradicate the Palestinian cause”. 

“This war has long since surpassed any logic or justification, and has become a war of starvation and genocide,” he said. 

Knesset member ejected

Today, a member of the Knesset (Israeli parliament) was removed by ushers while giving a speech in which he quoted an Israeli author David Grossman, who has described Israel’s war on Gaza as a genocide. 

“As David Grossman said in an interview with La Repubblica, and I quote: ‘For years I refused to use the term genocide, but now, after the images I’ve seen and after speaking to people who were there, I can no longer avoid it,’” said Offer Cassif of the Communist Party of Israel. 

Nissim Vaturi, a member of Netanyahu’s Likud party, was chairing the session.

He interjected: “That’s not a quote — that’s made up,” and demanded Cassif be removed. 

Grossman has, however, described Israel’s war as a genocide. 

In a post on X, Cassif said: “Even quoting critical writers is now forbidden in the parliament of the only democracy in the Middle East.”

אמש, במהלך נאומי לזכר נרצחי טבח שפרעם לפני 20 שנה, הורדתי באלימות מדוכן הנואמים באמצע דבריי, רק משום שציטטתי את דבריו של הסופר הישראלי דוד גרוסמן נגד הג'נוסייד בעזה.

אפילו סופרים ביקורתיים כבר אסור לצטט בפרלמנט של הדמוקרטיה היחידה במזה"ת.

בפרפראזה להיינה: במקום שבו אוסרים לצטט… pic.twitter.com/wwifu5OgyM

— Ofer Cassif עופר כסיף عوفر كسيف (@ofercass) August 5, 2025

Security Council meeting

Israel – backed by the United States and Panama – is preparing to convene a UN Security Council meeting today to highlight the fate of the hostages.

Netanyahu yesterday reiterated that Israel’s three war goals remained “the defeat of the enemy, the release of our hostages and the promise that Gaza will no longer pose a threat to Israel”.

His statement came after hundreds of retired Israeli security chiefs wrote to US President Donald Trump to urge him to convince Netanyahu to agree a ceasefire.

Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said ahead of the UN meeting that “the world must put an end to the phenomenon of kidnapping civilians. It must be front and centre on the world stage”.

Of the 251 hostages seized during Hamas’s October 2023 attack on Israel, 49 are still being held in Gaza, including 27 the Israeli military says are dead.

The UN session was called after Palestinian militant groups last week published three videos showing hostages Rom Braslavski and Evyatar David appearing weak and emaciated, causing shock and distress in Israel.

Netanyahu said he had asked the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to provide food and medical treatment to the Israeli captives.

Hamas’s armed wing said it was willing to allow access to the hostages in exchange for opening aid corridors into all of Gaza, where UN-mandated experts have warned famine is unfolding.

Netanyahu’s government has faced repeated accusations by relatives of hostages and other critics that it has not done enough to rescue the captives.

“Netanyahu is leading Israel and the hostages to ruin,” said the Hostages and Missing Families Forum campaign group.

“For 22 months, the public has been sold the illusion that military pressure and intense fighting will bring the hostages back.

“The truth must be said: expanding the war endangers the lives of the hostages, who are already in immediate mortal danger.”

“The world must come together now… and demand his release. He must be saved!” said David’s brother Ilay David said in an interview with AFP in Kfar Saba, near Tel Aviv, at the family home where they both were raised.

With reporting from AFP

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