By ‘decisive majority,’ Israeli security council votes to control Gaza City

The Israeli security cabinet decided by a “decisive majority” to approve Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s plan to defeat Hamas, including controlling Gaza City, the premier’s office stated on Friday morning.

“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,” according to Netanyahu’s office.

The Israel Defense Forces will prepare for “taking control of Gaza City, while distributing humanitarian assistance to the civilian population outside the combat zones,” the prime minister’s office stated.

It said that the cabinet voted on five principles: disarming Hamas, returning all of the living and dead hostages, demilitarizing Gaza, Israeli security control of the Strip and creating an “alternative civil administration that is neither Hamas nor the Palestinian Authority.”

Earlier, Netanyahu had said that Israel would control the entirety of the Strip.

David Friedman, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel, stated that “Israel’s objectives in Gaza have been the same since Oct. 7—defeat Hamas, such that it no longer threatens Israel or the people in Gaza and recover all the hostages.”

“These goals have not changed even for a single day. To those who criticize Netanyahu’s decision to control Gaza temporarily, what else should he do?” Friedman stated. “There is no hostage deal on the table, and there is no willingness by Hamas to surrender. And the abandonment of Israel by the United Kingdom, Canada and France, along with 27 Democrat senators, gives Hamas no incentive to make a deal.”

Continuing the war may be unpopular, “but handing Hamas a victory is, and should be, even less popular,” Friedman stated. “Praying for the brave soldiers of Israel that they rescue all the hostages and bring Hamas’s control of Gaza to a decisive end.”

The Israeli military told residents of Zeitoun, a Gaza City district that was once a major Hamas stronghold, to evacuate on Wednesday, as the military expands its operations westward. The IDF cleared Zeitoun during a two-week operation in 2024.

Last month, the Israeli military said that an investigation found that it unintentionally struck a Catholic church in Gaza City. The American Jewish Committee said it is donating $25,000 to help rebuild the church.

©️JNS