Israel faces growing calls to scrap Gaza offensive plan

International condemnation is growing over Israel’s plan for a military takeover of Gaza City ahead of an emergency United Nations Security Council meeting.

Israel’s far-right finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, has demanded that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu scrap his plan to seize Gaza City in favour of a tougher one, while Italy says the plan could result in a “Vietnam” for Israel’s army.

Netanyahu’s security cabinet, of which the minister, Bezalel Smotrich, is a member, approved the plan by majority on Friday to expand military operations in the shattered Palestinian enclave to try to defeat the terrorist group Hamas.

The move drew a chorus of condemnation within Israel, where thousands of people protested in Tel Aviv – and abroad – on Saturday, calling for an immediate ceasefire and release of hostages held by militant group Hamas.

The United Nations Security Council was expected to meet later on Sunday to discuss the plan, with many countries expressing concern it could worsen already acute hunger among Palestinians.

Netanyahu was expected to give a news conference for international media in Israel and make a televised announcement later in the day. It was not clear what he would say.

Smotrich said he has lost faith in Netanyahu’s ability and desire to lead to a victory over Hamas. The new plan, he said in a video on X late on Saturday, was intended to get Hamas back to ceasefire negotiations.

The prime minister and the cabinet have decided to do “more of the same” he said, referring to the fact that Israeli troops have entered the city before and failed to defeat Hamas.

He and other far-right members of Netanyahu’s coalition argue the plan does not go far enough, but Smotrich stopped short of delivering a clear ultimatum to Netanyahu.

Other far-right coalition allies of Netanyahu have also pushed for total military occupation of Gaza, the annexation of large swaths of the territory and the removal of much of its Palestinian population.

The Israeli military has warned that expanding the offensive could endanger the lives of hostages Hamas is still holding in Gaza, believed to number about 20, and draw its troops into protracted and deadly guerrilla warfare.

Italy said Israel should heed its army’s warnings.

“The invasion of Gaza risks turning into a Vietnam for Israeli soldiers,” Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani told daily Il Messaggero.

He reiterated calls for a UN mission led by Arab countries to “reunify the Palestinian state” and said Italy was ready to participate.

The Security Council is likely to discuss the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and the prospect of its worsening if the Israeli plan goes ahead but there has been little appetite among Arab states to send in troops.

Israel has come under mounting pressure over widespread hunger and thirst in the enclave, prompting it to announce a series of new measures to ease aid distribution.

The Israeli military said on Sunday the contents of almost 1900 aid trucks were distributed last week from the Gaza sides of the Kerem Shalom and Zikim border crossings.

The United Nations has said Gaza needs far more aid.

The war began on October 7, 2023, when Hamas-led militants stormed southern Israel and killed 1200 people, and took 251 hostages. Israeli authorities say 20 of the remaining 50 hostages in Gaza are alive.

David Isaac, Amelie Botbol report for JNS:

Religious Zionism mulls toppling gov’t as Smotrich says he’s ‘lost faith’ in PM
The Religious Zionism Party, increasingly exasperated with the conduct of the war, is considering bringing down the Netanyahu government, sources told JNS on Sunday.

The party’s leader, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, issued a blistering denunciation of the prime minister on Saturday evening.

The breaking point appears to have come with the reversal, in Religious Zionism’s view, of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s determination to conquer all of the Gaza Strip and crush the Hamas terrorist group once and for all.

Although the prime minister continues to declare that Israel intends to conquer all of Gaza, including in an interview with Fox News on Thursday, Aug. 7, shortly before he entered a Security Cabinet meeting to seek approval for the decision, Smotrich, who attended the meeting, said the decision that was taken is not all it seems.

Instead of an operation to seize control of Gaza (roughly 25% of the Strip remains unconquered) and ensure victory, it is merely an attempt to pressure Hamas to return to the negotiating table over the release of the remaining 50 hostages, of whom 20 are estimated to still be alive, he said.

“The prime minister and the Cabinet succumbed to weakness, and let emotion win over common sense,” Smotrich said in a video post on X.

One source in the Religious Zionism Party told JNS on Sunday: “The Security Cabinet’s decision on Thursday was, in the party’s view, a severe mistake and a retreat from the government’s determination to truly achieve victory and defeat Hamas. If this decision is not changed, we are headed toward dissolving the government and going to elections.”

Religious Zionist Knesset member Tzvi Sukkot, in an X post on Sunday, said, “If we return to 10/6/23 and decide to abandon the war’s objectives, it is an existential danger to the State of Israel. If this is the situation, in my opinion, we need to go to elections.”

Religious Zionism MK Simcha Rothman, chairman of the Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee, agreed that the government’s failure to fully defeat Hamas could lead to early elections.

“I don’t know what will happen in the end. I am sure that if this lack of faith by Minister Smotrich in the ability of this government to end the war and eliminate Hamas continues, then the answer is probably ‘yes,’” Rothman told JNS.

The government’s war aim

Smotrich has been warning for two years that the government had been making a “major mistake” by effectively swapping out as its war aim the elimination of Hamas with that of negotiating with Hamas to free the hostages, Rothman said.

Hamas has repeatedly rejected ceasefire-for-hostages proposals, Rothman noted. “Every time Netanyahu gets a negative response from Hamas—and the negotiators from this and the previous administration were very clear that Hamas does not want a deal—at some point, one should say that the deal is off the table and that we will go all in. As Trump said, ‘Open the gates of hell on Hamas.’”

But Netanyahu is unwilling to abandon negotiations and therein lies the problem, because Israel doesn’t have “endless time,” neither for the soldiers nor for the hostages, Rothman said.

“We have to push through. We have to take down Hamas. To keep this negotiating window open is the mistake that has kept the war stuck for so long. It’s not good for winning the war. It’s not good for Israel,” he said.

In his X post, Smotrich acknowledged Israel’s achievements thus far against Hezbollah, Iran and, to a degree, against Hamas, but said “the goals of the war haven’t yet been completed.”

For weeks, he revealed, he had been working “intensively” with Netanyahu on a plan for a speedy military victory followed by a diplomatic move that would exact “a painful price” of Hamas, “destroy its military and civilian capabilities, and overwhelm it with unprecedented pressure to release the hostages.

“For weeks, the prime minister seemed to support the plan. He debated with me on the details and broadcast that he was striving for a victory and this time he intended to go all the way. But to my regret, he immediately made a U-turn,” Smotrich said.

If the purpose of the IDF’s next maneuver is only to bring Hamas back to negotiations, the army will not operate at full power, Smotrich warned. Worse still, it will give Hamas an out at the moment of its choosing. The second it senses it’s on the brink of defeat, it will green-light negotiations so it can regroup, he said.

“That’s how you don’t defeat [your enemy], that’s how you don’t return hostages, that’s how you don’t win a war,” Smotrich said.

“I have lost faith that the prime minister is capable of, or wants, to lead the IDF [to victory],” he said.

Smotrich noted that he had supported the government despite difficult decisions with which he didn’t agree, including the release of terrorists, who had murdered Israelis, for the release of hostages.

Signalling he had reached the end of the line, Smotrich said, “To send tens of thousands of soldiers to maneuver in Gaza City at the risk of their lives, to pay a heavy political and international price just to put pressure on Hamas to release the hostages, and then stepping back, is an immoral and illogical injustice.

“Unfortunately, for the first time since the beginning of the war, I feel that I simply cannot stand behind this decision and back it. My conscience won’t allow me,” he said.

Reuters/JNS