Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir raised the proposal at a cabinet meeting this week, sources told the outlet. The pair, who lead the Religious Zionism and Otzma Yehudit parties, respectively, asked the military to present a plan for destroying Gaza City and the tunnels under it, along with seizing control of all of the coastal enclave.
The Israel Defense Forces controls the eastern parts of Gaza City, while over a million Gazans are sheltering in the west of the city, where there is a daily 10-hour humanitarian pause in the fighting. According to the report, IDF Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir told the meeting that if the political leadership instructs the army to maneuver in all of Gaza City or the refugee camps in the central Gaza region, then it must declare that bringing home the hostages is only a secondary goal of the war, as such operations would endanger the captives.
According to the report, the government, which has repeatedly listed saving the hostages as a prime goal of the war along with destroying Hamas, is not prepared to declare such a change in objectives at this time. (Read More)
