Israel will move Gaza's entire 2million population to 'humanitarian zone' under plan to 'conquer' the strip and hold it indefinitely - as Hamas warns there is 'no sense' in restarting talks
Israel will displace Gaza's entire population from their homes unless a deal with Hamas is reached within days, according to a plan approved by the Security Council.
A plan was brought together on Sunday to gradually reoccupy all of the Palestinian enclave and hold it indefinitely unless a deal can be made by May 15.
The plan includes measures to flatten 'all infrastructure' above and below ground and move virtually 2.3 million people to what Israel has termed a 'humanitarian area'.
One official said that the alternative for Palestinians would be to leave their homeland 'voluntarily', moving to countries 'in line with President Trump's vision for Gaza'.
But with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ruling out proposals that would end the war entirely, Hamas has conceded there is 'no sense' in pursuing truce talks.
'There is no sense in engaging in talks or considering new ceasefire proposals as long as the hunger war and extermination war continue in the Gaza Strip,' senior Hamas official Basem Naim told the AFP news agency on Tuesday.
He said the world must pressure the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to end the 'crimes of hunger, thirst, and killings' in Gaza.
Gaza has been under total Israeli blockade since March and faces a severe humanitarian crisis, with more than 52,000 people killed since the start of the conflict, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry in Hamas-run Gaza.
Israeli troops deploy at a position near Israel's border with the Gaza Strip, on May 5, 2025
Displaced Palestinians receive hot meals distributed by aid organizations in Jabalia refugee camp of Jabalia, Gaza on May 5, 2025
Rahaf Iyyad, a 12-year-old Palestinian girl, suffers from malnutrition and undiagnosed diseases amid the Israeli blockade in the region in Gaza City, Gaza on May 2, 2025
Smoke rises from a residential area following an Israeli strike in Sheyma neighborhood, Beit Lahia, the north west of Gaza Strip on May 6, 2025
The plan to reopen a major offensive in the beleaguered Gaza Strip, codenamed 'Gideon's Chariots', has been met with round condemnation.
Polls showed some two thirds of Israelis opposed a major operation to occupy Gaza, and most of the families of hostages believe the operation would endanger their relatives.
No hostages have been released since the conflict resumed and critics in Israel continue to lobby for a ceasefire to ensure the safe return of dozens of captives.
Political opponents and hostage advocates have accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of prolonging the war for political purposes, which he denies.
Dr Andreas Krieg, Associate Professor of Defence Studies at King's College, told MailOnline: 'There is no prospect of a ceasefire deal at the moment. Israel has entirely disengaged from the mediation and negotiation process.
'The Netanyahu government is prioritising military coercive avenues over diplomatic ones – these are the avenues that deliver on Netanyahu's core objective: political survival and appealing to his base.'
For its part, the military claims to be 'increasing the pressure' in an attempt to return hostages held in Gaza since Hamas' October 2023 incursion into southern Israel.
Others have questioned the legality of such an operation.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot in a radio interview on Tuesday called the plan 'unacceptable', and said its government was 'in violation of humanitarian law'.
A spokesman for the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office said the UK ‘does not support an expansion of Israel’s military operations in Gaza’.
But Israel has already started the process of calling up tens of thousands of reservists to 'intensify and expand' its operations in Gaza.
One Israeli official said that plans discussed by the war cabinet involved the 'conquering of Gaza and holding territories' - a break from raiding and leaving areas.
Tents of internally displaced Palestinians set up in a garbage dump next to Al Yarmouk stadium in central Gaza City, May 5 2025
Israeli soldiers provide maintenance to an mobile canon at a position near Israel's border with the Gaza Strip, on May 5, 2025
The sun sets behind the northern Gaza Strip as seen from southern Israel, Monday, May 5, 2025
Buildings destroyed during the Israeli ground and air operations in the Gaza Strip are seen from southern Israel on Sunday, May 4, 2025
The plans for a renewed offensive were aired ahead of Trump's visit to the Middle East next week.
Israeli security cabinet minister Zeev Elkin told Kan that 'there is still a window of opportunity until President Trump concludes his visit to the Middle East, if Hamas understands we are serious'.
Trump is not playing a mediating role between Hamas and Israel, and Netanyahu faces less pressure than he did from the previous U.S. administration.
But an Arab official told Axios that the 'optics' around a visit to the region, without stopping in Israel, were 'very bad'.
'He made a big splash pushing for a ceasefire before his inauguration and got it done, but three months later the situation in Gaza is worse,' they said.
Israel already controls roughly half of Gaza's territory, including a buffer zone along the border with Israel as well as three corridors that run east-west along the strip.
Since the collapse of the ceasefire agreement in March, the IDF has seized even more territory in Gaza and imposed a blockade on humanitarian aid.
Seizures have squeezed war-weary Palestinians into ever shrinking wedges of land in the devastated territory.
Dr Krieg told MailOnline: 'In the process of creating ever more corridors of military control cleansed from civilians, Israel will advance the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from the north to the south of the territory – an objective that will require high troop levels.
'The IDF will advance this agenda gradually by clearing and holding territory small slices at a time until the remaining 2 million Gazans will be crammed into a much smaller territory in the south of the Gaza Strip.
'This will unlikely deliver on the objective of freeing the hostages, which has long been abandoned by the Netanyahu government as the primary objective.
'The collapse of the ceasefire in March, which provided an effective way to release hostages, showed that Netanyahu is preoccupied with delivering on the agenda of seizing territory rather than getting the hostages back.'
Israel says it won't agree to end the war until Hamas is defeated. Hamas, meanwhile, has demanded an agreement that winds down the war.
While Qatari and Egyptian mediators are said to have proposed a new ceasefire plan to end the conflict, gruelling fighting continues across the Strip.
Smoke rises after Israeli airstrike towards Tuffah neighborhood in Gaza Strip on May 4, 2025
Shuruq Ayyad shows off the protruding ribs of her 12-year-old daughter Rahaf at a school-turned-shelter in al-Rimal in central Gaza City on May 4, 2025
Amnesty International accused Israel on April 29, of committing a 'live-streamed genocide' against Palestinians by forcibly displacing Gazans and creating a humanitarian catastrophe in the besieged territory, claims Israel dismissed as 'blatant lies'.
A boy walks carrying a jerrycan filled with water past the rubble of a destroyed building in Gaza City on April 21, 2025
The Israeli Cabinet remains divided over how and whether to resume aid to Gaza's 2.3 million population, facing starvation, disease and terminal dehydration.
Far-right ministers argued on Sunday 'there is no need to bring in aid' to the civilian population, according to Israeli public broadcaster, Kan.
Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir was said to have yelled back at the ministers: 'You don't understand what you are saying. You are endangering us all.
'There is an international law. We are committed to it. We cannot starve the Strip. Your statements are dangerous.'
The concerns were said to have been referred up to Netanyahu but ultimately ignored by the Cabinet, maintaining its stance on the blockade.
Until a lasting ceasefire can be agreed, the civilian population in Gaza continues to bear the brunt of Israel's bombardment.
At least 52,535 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since the conflict erupted on October 7, 2023, according to the Palestinian health-ministry in Hamas-run Gaza, who do not distinguish between combatants and civilians in their count.
Of those, 2,436 have been killed since March 18, many of them women and children.
The fighting has displaced more than 90 per cent of Gaza's population, often multiple times, and turned Gaza into an uninhabitable hellscape.
Rights groups warn the humanitarian crisis is causing unimaginable suffering.
Displaced Palestinians prepare bread in a makeshift oven in Gaza City, Monday, May 5, 2025
Smoke rises from the area following an Israeli strike in Khan Yunis, Gaza on May 5
Israeli emergency services clear a road outside Israel's Ben Gurion airport after a missile reportedly launched from Yemen struck near the facility on May 4, 2025
A missile launched from Yemen struck near Israel's main international airport on May 4, Israeli authorities said, an attack that briefly halted air traffic and triggered threats of retaliation.
Amnesty International, sharing testimonies from residents on Friday, assessed that starvation and the denial of life-saving essentials were being used as 'weapons of war'.
'Apart from a brief respite during the temporary truce, Israel has relentlessly and mercilessly turned Gaza into an inferno of death and destruction,' said Erika Guevara Rosas, Amnesty International's Senior Director for Research, Advocacy, Policy, and Campaigns.
'For the past two months, Israel has completely cut off the supply of humanitarian aid and other items indispensable to the survival of civilians in a clear and calculated effort to collectively punish over two million civilians and to make Gaza unliveable,' she added, terming the conflict a 'genocide'.
Residents described being unable to bury the dead, burning hazardous materials like waste and nylon for cooking and heating, widespread disease, shortages of life-saving medications and equipment in hospitals, and a scarcity of water.
Clashes have intensified since Israel withdrew from the truce agreement in March, with the two sides failing to agree on an extension.
Israel and Hamas had exchanged hostages for prisoners and maintained nearly two months of relative peace before the truce broke down.
Smoke rises after an Israeli airstrike towards Tuffah neighborhood in the Gaza Strip on May 4
A flare fired by the Israeli army over the Gaza Strip is seen from southern Israel, May 4, 2025
An Israeli fighter jet flies over southern Israel, Monday, May 5, 2025
Burning fields in front of destroyed houses in northern Gaza on May 4, 2025
The ceasefire collapsed just over a fortnight before the second phase of the deal was due to take effect.
That would have seen the exchange of all of the remaining hostages and the establishment of a permanent ceasefire, with details still to be agreed.
Hamas rejected a proposal to extend the ceasefire for 50 days to discuss the terms of phase two. Israel fired 'pre-emptive' strikes soon after.
The latest eruption of fighting in the decades-long conflict began when Hamas led an incursion into southern Israel on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 hostage.
The attack, which saw teenagers gunned down at a festival and homes raided, was the deadliest day for Israel in its history.
