Netanyahu spars with IDF chief over Gaza war plans

Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir pushes back on Netanyahu’s plan to build a humanitarian city for Gaza civilians, calling instead to capture more of the Gaza Strip.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

The IDF has formulated a combat plan to extend greater control over the Gaza Strip, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has blocked discussion of it as he wants to see if the currently stalled hostage negotiations can be saved, Israel Hayom reported Monday.

Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir favors taking over more territory than the approximately 65% that the IDF now controls, with a special focus on commanding the key axis routes within the Strip while closing all entry and exit points.

Putting the coastal enclave under such a siege is an expansion of the “Generals’ Plan,” suggested months ago for northern Gaza.

Zamir believes that demonstrating to Hamas that it is constantly losing territory is much more likely to lead to the group’s collapse and the release of the hostages – the two goals of the war – than the humanitarian city that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu favors building in the southern part of the Strip.

Zamir has reportedly called the idea a “strategic mistake” and even a “strategic trap” for the IDF, which he said should be used only to destroy Hamas, not be in charge of the needs of the civilian population.

In this proposed city, some 600,000 civilians would receive all their basic needs in a guaranteed Hamas-free zone, which would ideally both encourage them to reject Hamas as their rulers and be a safe center from which they could emigrate to other countries.

Critics of this idea point to the difficult logistics of setting up such a city and the global censure of the idea as an Israeli attempt at forcing a population transfer.

Nationalist members of the coalition reject it as they have all humanitarian aid to Gaza, saying it only prolongs the fighting while not even leading to a hostage deal.

“Instead of dealing with the humanitarian city that harms the goals of the war, we should seriously deal with a plan that advances the goals of the war,” Channel 12 cited unnamed officials as saying in support of the army’s new plan.

According to Israel Hayom, Netanyahu forbade the coalition’s party leaders’ forum from discussing the IDF plan, even though the chief of staff had already shown it to them and two key ministers: Defense Minister Israel Katz and Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer.

He then barred Zamir from presenting it to the security cabinet, the paper said, where all major decisions on the war are made.

The prime minister reportedly wants to exhaust every last diplomatic avenue to reach a combined cease-fire and hostage deal with Hamas before intensifying military operations in the Strip even further than the IDF has done over the past four months in what it calls Operation Gideon’s Chariots.

The cease-fire under discussion is reportedly to last 60 days, during which an agreement is to be reached to end the war.

Zamir himself has said that the new plan should only come into effect if no initial deal is reached or negotiations over an end to the war fail.

Since Netanyahu has also said that if no such final agreement is reached, the IDF would pick up the fighting where it left off, the officials told Channel 12 that serious preparations must be made ahead of time for such a possibility, pointing to Zamir’s plan as one worthy of implementation.

Gaza ceasefiregaza striphamas hostagesIDFIsrael-Hamas war