JERUSALEM: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday (May 28) he had directed Israel’s military to take more of Gaza, initially by seizing 70 per cent of the Palestinian territory, where the population is already penned into a tiny strip of land along the coast.
Israel effectively controls an estimated 64 per cent of the tiny coastal Strip, bombarded to ruins by Israel’s two-year military assault that followed the 2023 Hamas attack on southern Israel.
Under an October US-brokered truce that has failed to halt Israeli attacks or secure Hamas’ disarmament, Israeli troops were meant to withdraw to a “Yellow Line” demarcating the extent of their control. Marked on military maps, that line put Israel in control of some 53 per cent of Gaza, with Hamas ruling the rest.
Reuters has reported that Israel has unilaterally moved the concrete blocks marking the Yellow Line on the ground deeper into Hamas-controlled territory. Maps issued by the military in March showed an even bigger restricted area that analysts say cordons off around 64 per cent of Gaza‘s territory in total.
Netanyahu has repeatedly said in public remarks that the military controls more than 60 per cent of Gaza.
Speaking to a conference in a settlement in the occupied West Bank, the Israeli leader said even more of Gaza would be taken.
“We were at fifty, we moved to sixty. My directive is to move to – let’s go step by step,” Netanyahu said on Thursday.
“First of all, seventy. Let’s start with that. We’re pressing them (Hamas) from all sides. We’ll deal with the remnants.”