Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is set to propose to his political-security cabinet a US-supported plan to begin annexing the Gaza Strip, Haaretz reported on Monday.
The report said that the plan is being proposed to appease Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and prevent him from quitting the government. Smotrich is angry over Netanyahu’s steps to slightly increase humanitarian aid shipments into Gaza amid international outrage over the starvation deaths in Gaza caused by the Israeli siege.
Under the plan, Israel will declare that it is giving Hamas a few days to agree to a ceasefire, the conditions of which are unclear. Hamas’s position is that it’s willing to free all remaining Israeli captives in exchange for a permanent truce, but Israel has only entertained the idea of a temporary ceasefire.
If Hamas doesn’t agree to the proposal, Israel will then begin annexing territory with Gaza. It will start by annexing the “buffer zone” it created along Gaza’s border with Israel and areas in northern Gaza that are adjacent to the Israeli cities of Sderot and Ashkelon, with the ultimate goal of annexing the entire Palestinian territory.
The Haaretz report said that, according to details Netanyahu has already presented to government ministers, the plan has received approval from the Trump administration. Netanyahu conveyed that Israeli Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer presented the proposal to US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and that it has the approval of the White House.
Since the US and Israel quit ceasefire talks last week, President Trump has hinted that he believes Israel should escalate its military assault by suggesting it needs to “finish the job” in Gaza. He also said Israel needs to “make a decision,” without specifying what that decision might be.
Sources told Haaretz that Smotrich told Netanyahu that he would “judge by actions” and that if the annexation plan moves forward, he would “remain in the government for the time being.”
Smotrich and other Israeli ministers have spoken openly about their desire for an Israeli takeover of Gaza and the ethnic cleansing of its Palestinian population. “We will occupy Gaza and make it an inseparable part of Israel,” Smotrich said at a Gaza annexation conference at the Knesset last week.
The event was titled “The Gaza Riviera – From Vision to Reality,” a nod to President Trump’s calls for a US takeover of the territory, which he has said would involve the removal of the Palestinian population. At the event, Smotrich said that Israel has the “green light from the president of the United States to turn Gaza into a prosperous strip, a resort town with employment.”
Smotrich said that a “proposed plan to relocate Gazans to other countries will serve as a means of facilitating the settlement of the strip” and that annexation could start with northern Gaza.
Netanyahu is also openly in favor of expelling Palestinians from Gaza. Back in May, Netanyahu said that enacting the “Trump plan” was a condition for ending Israel’s genocidal war. The Israeli leader also told a Knesset committee that the IDF was destroying homes in Gaza so Palestinians had nowhere to go and that their forced removal from the territory was “inevitable.”
