{"id":32681,"date":"2026-05-30T05:10:25","date_gmt":"2026-05-30T05:10:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/?p=32681"},"modified":"2026-05-30T05:10:30","modified_gmt":"2026-05-30T05:10:30","slug":"just-what-are-israels-long-term-plans-for-gaza","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/?p=32681","title":{"rendered":"Just what are Israel\u2019s long-term plans for Gaza?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Despite an apparent ceasefire, Israel\u2019s leaders continue to hint at annexation and ethnic cleansing.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

After two years of relentless bombardment and ground invasions, Israel\u2019s future in Gaza had appeared to be settled with the signing of United States President Donald Trump\u2019s 20-point peace plan on October 9, 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Under the terms of that agreement, Israeli forces were meant to withdraw behind what planners called the \u201cYellow Line\u201d, maintaining control of 58 percent of the territory, with their full withdrawal to be set at a date to be determined.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That withdrawal hasn\u2019t happened. In fact, in the months since, as well as killing at least 922 people in near-daily strikes on the enclave during the \u201cceasefire\u201d, Israel has expanded its territory by about 11 percent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to satellite data gathered in March, it has also established at least 32 military outposts, a ground barrier, and infrastructure along what was supposed to be a temporary line.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since October last year, numerous humanitarian agencies, including Oxfam<\/a>, have accused Israel of compounding the humanitarian crisis in Gaza by restricting deliveries of aid and other essential goods.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then, on Thursday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that Israel will take over yet more territory in Gaza, telling a conference: \u201cWe are currently squeezing Hamas; we now control 60 percent of the territory of the Strip \u2013 you know this. We were at 50. My directive is to move to \u2026,\u201d he said, pausing briefly as someone in the crowd yelled, \u201c100!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLet\u2019s go step by step,\u201d he responded, \u201cFirst of all, 70. Let\u2019s start with that. We\u2019re pressing them from all sides; we\u2019ll deal with the remnants.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Al Jazeera contacted the Israeli prime minister\u2019s office for clarification of this, but received no response by the time of publishing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Can Israel just grab more land in Gaza?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf Israel\u2019s ultimate plan is to exercise permanent effective control over the entirety of the Gaza Strip, we are talking about unlawful annexation,\u201d Michael Becker, a professor of international human rights law at Trinity College in Dublin, told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs the International Court of Justice reaffirmed in a 2024 advisory opinion, annexation constitutes a violation of the bedrock prohibition of the acquisition of territory by force.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nevertheless, to date, since the onset of its war on Gaza in October 2023, Israeli forces have killed at least 72,819<\/a> men, women and children in Gaza, with many thousands more missing and presumed dead under the rubble.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By 2025, Israel had caused a confirmed<\/a> famine in the enclave and has now decimated<\/a> nearly all infrastructure needed to support life. It has done all this without experiencing any meaningful international sanctions and still takes part in numerous international sporting and entertainment competitions \u2013 despite protests<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hopes that the US might enforce its own conditions on Israel also appear ill-founded. Since announcing a ceasefire in the enclave in October last year, the US has failed to react as Israel has expanded and entrenched its presence in Gaza, choking off access to about two-thirds of the enclave for its inhabitants by April 2026.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Al Jazeera also contacted the US State Department for comment about this, but received no response by the time of publishing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Can Gaza\u2019s population survive in such a reduced territory?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s very hard to tell. Several agencies, including the UN\u2019s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), have expressed deep concern about how Gaza\u2019s remaining population can continue to subsist in an ever-shrinking space.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Israel\u2019s answer to this is simple. \u201cThe plan for voluntary emigration from Gaza will also be implemented, all at the proper time and in the proper manner,\u201d Defence Minister Israel Katz wrote in a statement marking the killing of Hamas leader Mohammed Odeh on Wednesday this week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cVoluntary emigration\u201d is a term used by a number of Israel\u2019s government ministers, including National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich. Observers typically acknowledge that this means the ethnic cleansing of the enclave.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Israel\u2019s Ministry of Defence did not respond to questions about this from Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is any of this legal?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

No.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe idea of permanently removing Palestinians from Gaza smacks of forced displacement and would also violate the fundamental right to self-determination of the Palestinian people,\u201d Becker said. The principle of self-determination serves as a \u201ccornerstone\u201d of the UN Charter, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, Becker said, the spotlight of international attention has now shifted from the crisis in Gaza to the US and Israel\u2019s war on Iran, as well as Israel\u2019s actions in Lebanon, where it has occupied large swaths of the south of the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhile the Trump administration may be willing to diverge from Israel\u2019s interests in seeking a resolution to the disastrous and illegal war that the United States started against Iran, the United States seems to have lost interest in Gaza or pushing for restraint on the part of Netanyahu\u2019s government. It is unclear what role the so-called Board of Peace is willing to play in terms of maintaining a future for the Palestinians of Gaza,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reference Link:- https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/news\/2026\/5\/29\/just-what-are-israels-long-term-plans-for<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Despite an apparent ceasefire, Israel\u2019s leaders continue to hint at annexation and ethnic cleansing. After two years of relentless bombardment and ground invasions, Israel\u2019s future in Gaza had appeared to be settled with the signing of United States President Donald Trump\u2019s 20-point peace plan on October 9, 2025. Under the terms of that agreement, Israeli […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":32682,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"aside","meta":{"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2],"tags":[26178,23877,25196,8098,1737,29678,1510,29677,17576,1515,18540],"class_list":["post-32681","post","type-post","status-publish","format-aside","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sample-category","tag-anexxation","tag-brutalities-2","tag-ethnic-cleansing-2","tag-extremism-2","tag-gaza-2","tag-humanrights-violations","tag-israel-2","tag-israeli-invasion-of-gaza","tag-palestine-2","tag-west-bank-2","tag-zionism-2","post_format-post-format-aside"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32681","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=32681"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32681\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32683,"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32681\/revisions\/32683"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/32682"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=32681"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=32681"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=32681"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}