Israeli opposition leader, Yair Lapid has blasted the security cabinet’s decision to takeover Gaza City.

His post on X asserted that the cabinet’s decision is a “disaster that will lead to many more disasters.”

“In complete contradiction to the opinion of the military and security ranks, without considering the erosion and exhaustion of the fighting forces, [Itamar] Ben Gvir and [Bezalel] Smotrich dragged Netanyahu into a move that will take months, lead to the death of the hostages, the killing of many soldiers, cost tens of billions to the Israeli taxpayer, and lead to a political collapse.”
Yair Lapid

He added that this is “exactly” what Hamas wanted: “for Israel to be trapped in the field without a goal, without defining the picture of the day after, in a useless occupation that no one understands where it is leading.”

This came after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office disclosed that the Israeli security cabinet had approved a plan to take over Gaza City, marking another escalation of Israel’s offensive in the Gaza Strip.

The decision – early on Friday during a marathon meeting – came after Netanyahu said that Israel intended to take full control of Gaza and eventually hand it over to friendly Arab forces opposed to Hamas.

It is thought that the security cabinet’s decision to take over Gaza City as opposed to the entire territory could reflect the reservations of Israel’s top military officials.

In announcing the Gaza City takeover plan, Netanyahu’s office referred to another plan submitted to the Israeli security cabinet but said that most of the Ministers believed it “would neither achieve the defeat of Hamas nor the return of the hostages.”

Israeli media reported that this appeared to be referring to a proposal presented by Israeli military chief of staff, Lt Gen Eyal Zamir, who has reportedly warned that occupying Gaza would plunge Israel into a “black hole” of prolonged insurgency, humanitarian responsibility and heightened risk to hostages.

Also, Yair Golan, the leader of the Democrats party, said that Netanyahu and the security cabinet’s decision means that “more hostages will be abandoned to their deaths.”

He criticised the Israeli Prime Minister, saying that he is “weak, easily pressured, lacking decision-making ability, and without the capacity to bridge between what the professional level presents and the group of messianists controlling the government.”

Golan described the decision as “a disaster for generations.”

“Our sons and grandsons will still patrol the alleys of Gaza, we will pay hundreds of billions over the years, and all this for reasons of political survival and messianic visions.”
Yair Golan

Gaza City Takeover Plan No Different From Current Situation

Rami Khouri, a distinguished fellow at the American University of Beirut, told a news agency that the plan to occupy Gaza City had been expected and the operation would likely not change the situation much from what exists currently on the ground in the war-torn enclave.

“Israel controls all of Gaza, from all the borders in the air and sea. It is already totally in control of anything that comes in and out of Gaza – the very little they allow in. So this just formalises, a little bit, the nature of the Israeli presence.

“It means they are going to go into some of the areas where there are still dense urban conglomerations of people in Gaza City and in the centre of the Strip.”
Rami Khouri

He stressed that the plan is not “a big difference from the situation that already exists.”

Israel has repeatedly bombarded the city in northern Gaza and it launched major ground operations there within weeks of Hamas’s October 2023 attack that triggered the war. Several neighbourhoods and key infrastructure are almost completely destroyed.

The news agency reports that on the eve of the war it was Gaza’s most populous city, home to about 700,000 people. Hundreds of thousands fled under Israeli evacuation orders at the start of the war but many returned during a ceasefire earlier this year.