By Kevin Reed
As murderous military assaults as well as death from starvation intensify, details of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s plan for the total conquest and annexation of Gaza are coming to light.
On Tuesday, one day after Netanyahu’s official announcement, a high-level strategy meeting was convened in Tel Aviv to finalize Israel’s military operations. According to a detailed report in the Washington Post, the meeting brought together Netanyahu, Defense Minister Israel Katz, IDF Chief of Staff Lt. General Eyal Zamir, Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer and Major General Itzik Cohen, head of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Operations Directorate.
The central topic discussed was the practical implementation of the directive to occupy the remaining parts of Gaza not currently under Israeli control. Several military options were laid on the table, including the full encirclement of major refugee camps, followed by enhanced air strikes, drone operations and special forces raids to “liquidate remaining Hamas elements.”
Unnamed Washington Post sources present in the meeting emphasized that the Palestinian refugee camps in Gaza, still home to hundreds of thousands of displaced civilians, would now be considered combat zones.
The report said Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Zamir expressed strong reservations. He warned of the risk of mass civilian casualties, further unrest in the occupied West Bank, regional spillover and the immediate endangerment of the more than 50 Israeli hostages still believed to be held in Gaza.
The sources said Zamir told Netanyahu, “We are paving the road to chaos, not security,” a statement that was reportedly met with indifference. Netanyahu, determined to press forward, told attendees, “Political leadership makes the call. The military executes the call.” Katz backed him, saying, “There will be no more hesitation. The time to neutralize Gaza entirely has come.”
While elements within the Israeli government and military remain deeply divided on this course of action, the fascist Netanyahu government has made clear it will force compliance from the IDF leadership or remove those who resist.
As one senior official told Israel’s Channel 12: “The army must fall into line. This is a matter of survival for the State of Israel.” After 22 months of Israeli genocide in Gaza, the Zionist regime is now stating openly what it has refused to admit publicly all along.
The objective is a total restructuring of the Strip under Israeli rule. It is an open-ended occupation with no exit strategy, no plan for Palestinian self-rule and a prerequisite for ethnic cleansing of Gaza.
Such a blatantly criminal undertaking would be impossible without the support of the US. Speaking on Army Radio, Israeli national security analyst Ehud Etzion made it plain: “The United States has given Netanyahu carte blanche to occupy Gaza. This is not simply diplomatic cover, this is active endorsement.”
On Tuesday, while declining to directly endorse Israel’s occupation plan, President Trump told reporters, “So Israel is going to have to make a decision… It’s going to be pretty much up to Israel.”
Also on Tuesday, Steve Witkoff, Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East, addressed Israeli hostage families in Tel Aviv. He declared, “There won’t be a ceasefire just for a few returns. President Trump believes there needs to be an all-or-nothing agreement.”
Witkoff declared, “President Trump now believes that everybody ought to come home at once—no piecemeal deals. That doesn’t work.” He confirmed that the Trump administration had been working with Netanyahu on a new plan centered on “military resolution and political reordering.”
The Washington Post described this policy as “a maximalist stance to achieve finality,” effectively discarding the last semblances of diplomacy and civilian protection.
After Netanyahu’s declaration, the UN released a statement calling Israel’s plan to completely occupy and annex Gaza “deeply alarming.” UN human rights experts warned of “an escalated policy of population transfer, mass displacement, and permanent occupation,” clear violations of international treaties including the Fourth Geneva Convention.
“The devastation, death, hunger, and displacement of the Palestinian population—especially children—is exceptional in the face of modern law,” the statement read. The UN called for immediate cessation of offensive operations and unrestricted humanitarian access.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres said, “Gaza is facing a humanitarian collapse with over 2 million deprived of basic food, water, shelter, fuel and medicine. An occupation will not restore peace—it will sustain violence.” However, these declarations and others are being ignored by both Tel Aviv and Washington.
Meanwhile, scenes from within Gaza continue to show a horror beyond description. In the last 24 hours alone, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) have killed at least 80 Palestinians, per reports from Al Jazeera and the Palestinian Red Crescent. Local doctors reported mass casualties from fresh air strikes near Deir al-Balah and Rafah, including the deaths of at least a dozen aid workers and over 20 children.
Civilian populations are being intentionally targeted under the banner of rooting out “terrorist infrastructure,” with refugee camps around Khan Younis and Jabaliya shelled repeatedly in a span of just six hours.
Gaza’s Health Ministry now reports 189 deaths directly linked to malnutrition, including at least 93 children under the age of 10. These figures are believed to underrepresent the real toll, as many deaths in isolated or leveled communities go unregistered.
The core of Gaza’s hunger crisis is the Israeli government’s near-total control over the distribution of aid. Since March, all entry of humanitarian convoys has been routed through Israeli-secured corridors and processed by Israeli contractors, many of them subsidiaries of companies working under US security contracts.
The UN reports that over 1.2 million Gazans are now at immediate risk of famine. UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food Michael Fakhri told the Guardian:
Israel has built the most efficient starvation machine you can imagine. So, while it’s always shocking to see people being starved, no one should act surprised. All the information has been out in the open since early 2024.
Israel is starving Gaza. It’s genocide. It’s a crime against humanity. It’s a war crime. I have been repeating it and repeating it and repeating it, I feel like Cassandra.
Visual evidence of the catastrophe in Gaza continues to be circulated globally. Over the weekend, the Guardian published an extensive collection of images taken from drones and satellites operated by Human Rights Watch and local NGOs. They show Gaza transformed into arid wasteland.
Entire neighborhoods have been flattened into pale dust, interrupted only by blackened skeletal outlines of what were once apartment blocks, hospitals, mosques, or schools. Central Gaza City resembles Aleppo at the height of the Syrian war, though in just 22 months as opposed to years.
Images show children climbing over collapsed stairwells searching f or relatives, streets submerged in rubble and United Nations shelters leveled to the foundations. According to UNRWA, 79 percent of Gaza’s buildings have been damaged or destroyed, rendering more than 1.5 million Palestinians functionally homeless.
International law forbids collective punishment, starvation and forced displacement, but what Netanyahu defines as a “complete military victory” is, in practice, the coordinated destruction of an entire society through war, deprivation and occupation. With US backing, the Israeli government is not only permitted to commit these acts, but being encouraged.
Washington has vetoed multiple Security Council resolutions calling for an immediate ceasefire. European powers have confined themselves to statements of “deep concern” while arms continue to be exported to Israel. Arab governments have shifted policy quietly since early 2025, choosing to privately engage with Israel on border control and refugee management.
Protests have reemerged in Tel Aviv, led this week by the families of hostages still held by Hamas. Images of emaciated hostages released over the weekend by Hamas have ignited a wave of public anger. Thousands took to the streets demanding action by Netanyahu to end the assault on Gaza.
6 August 2025
Source: countercurrents.org