JERUSALEM(RAHNUMA): Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israeli forces now control 60 percent of the Gaza Strip, suggesting troops have expanded into more of the Palestinian territory than set out in an October ceasefire plan.
His comments come as Gaza remains gripped by daily violence, and as efforts to advance the fragile truce and put a permanent end to the war appear to have stalled.
“In the past two years we have shown the entire world what mighty forces are embedded in our people, in our state, in our army, in our heritage,” Netanyahu said on Thursday at an event marking Jerusalem Day.
“We brought back home all our hostages, up to the last one,” he added, referring to one of the main stated aims of the war in Gaza. “There were those who said: get out, get out! We did not get out. Today we control 60 percent; tomorrow we shall see.”
Under the terms of the US-brokered ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in effect since October, Israeli forces were to withdraw to a so-called “Yellow Line” in Gaza, leaving them in control of more than 50 percent of the Palestinian territory.
Netanyahu’s comments were the first official indication that the military was expanding its footprint after media reports in recent weeks that Israeli troops were moving up to a new so-called “Orange Line.”
The first phase of the truce saw the last hostages seized in Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attacks on Israel, which triggered the war in Gaza, released in exchange for Palestinians detained by Israel.
The second phase involves the thorny issues of Hamas’s disarmament and a gradual withdrawal of the Israeli military from the Gaza Strip.
With progress toward those goals stalling in ongoing talks between Hamas and mediators, Israeli media has reported that if Hamas refuses to disarm, the military is preparing to resume fighting in Gaza.
Netanyahu has hinted on several occasions that Israel will finish the job if the Palestinian Islamist movement does not disarm.
More than 850 Palestinians have been killed since the truce began, according to Gaza’s health ministry, which operates under Hamas authority and whose figures are considered reliable by the United Nations.
Over the same period, the Israeli military said five soldiers have been killed in Gaza.
