Israeli army will 'take control' of Gaza City: PM statement
Israel's security cabinet has approved a plan proposed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the military to "take control" of Gaza City, his office said in a statement Friday.
Under the plan to "defeat" Hamas in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli army "will prepare to take control of Gaza City while distributing humanitarian assistance to the civilian population outside combat zones", the statement said.
"The security cabinet -- by majority vote -- adopted five principles for concluding the war: the disarming of Hamas; the return of all hostages -- living and dead; the demilitarisation of the Gaza Strip; Israeli security control in the Gaza Strip; the establishment of an alternative civil administration that is neither Hamas nor the Palestinian Authority.
"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," it added, without giving further details.
As he convened his security cabinet on Thursday, Netanyahu said Israel planned to take full control of Gaza but did not intend to govern it.
Nearly two years into the war in Gaza, the Israeli leader faces mounting pressure at home and abroad for a truce deal to pull the Palestinian territory's more than two million people back from the brink of famine and to spare hostages held by Palestinian militants.
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