Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised Monday to update Israel’s Gaza war plan, a day before a UN Security Council meeting on the fate of hostages still held in the Palestinian territory.
Addressing a cabinet meeting nearly 22 months into the war, the Israeli leader told ministers that later in the week he would instruct the military on how “to achieve the three war objectives we have set”.
Netanyahu’s announcement comes as he faces increasing pressure to return the remaining hostages in Gaza, as well as mounting international calls to address the dire food situation in the Gaza Strip.
Israel — backed by the United States and Panama — is preparing to convene a UN Security Council meeting on Tuesday to highlight the fate of the hostages.
At the weekly cabinet meeting, Netanyahu reiterated that Israel’s three war goals remain “the defeat of the enemy, the release of our hostages and the promise that Gaza will no longer pose a threat to Israel”.
His statement came after hundreds of retired Israeli security chiefs wrote to US President Donald Trump to urge him to convince Netanyahu to end the war.
Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said ahead of the UN session in New York that “the world must put an end to the phenomenon of kidnapping civilians. It must be front and centre on the world stage”.
Of the 251 hostages seized during Hamas’s October 2023 attack on Israel, 49 are still held in the Palestinian territory, including 27 the Israeli military says are dead.
– ‘Immediate mortal danger’ –
The UN session was called after Palestinian militant groups published last week three videos showing hostages Rom Braslavski and Evyatar David appearing weak and emaciated, causing deep shock and distress in Israel.
Netanyahu said he had asked the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to provide food and medical treatment to the Israeli captives.
Hamas’s armed wing said it was willing to allow access to the hostages in exchange for opening aid corridors into all of Gaza, where UN-mandated experts have warned famine was unfolding.
The ICRC said in a statement it was “appalled by the harrowing videos” and reiterated its “call to be granted access to the hostages”.
Netanyahu’s government has faced repeated accusations by relatives of hostages and other critics of not doing enough to rescue the captives.
“Netanyahu is leading Israel and the hostages to ruin,” said the Hostages and Missing Families Forum campaign group.
“For 22 months, the public has been sold the illusion that military pressure and intense fighting will bring the hostages back.
“The truth must be said: expanding the war endangers the lives of the hostages, who are already in immediate mortal danger.”
– ‘Only through a deal’ –
Mediation efforts led by Qatar, Egypt and the United States have failed to secure a truce.
Hundreds of retired Israeli security officials including former heads of intelligence agencies have urged US President Donald Trump to pressure their own government to end the war.
“It is our professional judgement that Hamas no longer poses a strategic threat to Israel,” the former officials wrote in an open letter shared with the media on Monday.
The war “is leading the State of Israel to lose its security and identity”, said Ami Ayalon, former director of the Shin Bet security service, in a video released to accompany the letter.
The letter argued that the Israeli military “has long accomplished the two objectives that could be achieved by force: dismantling Hamas’s military formations and governance.”
“The third, and most important, can only be achieved through a deal: bringing all the hostages home,” it added.
– ‘We are starving’ –
Hamas’s October 2023 attack that sparked the war resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, mostly civilians, according to a tally of official figures.
Israel’s campaign in Gaza has killed at least 60,933 people, also mostly civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry, which are deemed reliable by the UN.
Gaza’s civil defence agency said Israeli fire on Monday killed at least 19 Palestinians, including nine who were waiting to collect food aid from a site in central Gaza.
In Gaza City, Umm Osama Imad was mourning a relative she said was killed while trying to reach an aid distribution point.
“We are starving… He went to bring flour for his family,” she said. “The flour is stained with blood. We don’t want the flour anymore. Enough!”
Further south, in Deir el-Balah, Abdullah Abu Musa told AFP his daughter and her family were killed in an Israeli strike.
Decrying the attack on “young children”, he said that “perhaps the world will wake up — but it never will”.
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