Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has declared that Israel “has no choice but to finish the job and complete the defeat of Hamas,” as he addressed foreign media in Jerusalem.
Defending a planned military offensive, Mr Netanyahu asserted that “our goal is not to occupy Gaza, our goal is to free Gaza,” while also pushing back against what he called a “global campaign of lies” amid growing condemnation of the plan both inside and outside Israel.
The prime minister outlined a “fairly short timetable” for the next steps in Gaza.
He stated that Israel’s objectives include demilitarising the territory, ensuring the Israeli military has “overriding security control,” and establishing a non-Israeli civilian administration.
In a striking development, Mr Netanyahu revealed he had recently directed Israel’s military to “bring in more foreign journalists.”
This marks a significant shift, as foreign media have not typically been allowed into Gaza beyond military embeds.
He again blamed the Hamas militant group for many of Gaza’s problems, including civilian deaths, destruction, and shortages of aid.
At least 26 Palestinians were killed while seeking aid in the Gaza Strip, hospitals and witnesses said, as families of Israeli hostages called for a general strike to protest Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s plans to expand military operations in the territory.
Netanyahu is scheduled to give a press conference for foreign and local media later Sunday amid international condemnation of his plans. His address will come just before the United Nations Security Council holds an emergency meeting on Israel’s plan to take control of Gaza City.
Hospital officials said they received bodies from areas where Palestinians were seeking aid — either along food convoy routes or near privately run aid distribution points across Gaza.
The dead include 10 who were killed while waiting for aid trucks close to the newly built Morag corridor which separates the southern cities of Rafah and Khan Younis, said Nasser hospital.
A further six people were killed while waiting for aid in northern Gaza near the Zikim crossing, according to the Gaza Health Ministry and the Shifa hospital in Gaza City which received the casualties.
In central Gaza, witnesses said they first heard warning shots before the fire was aimed toward crowds of aid seekers trying to reach a food distribution site operated by Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. AP cannot independently confirm who fired the shots. The Awda hospital in the nearby Nuseirat refugee camp said four people were killed by Israeli gunfire.
“First, it was in the air, then they started to fire at the people,” said Sayed Awda, who waited hundreds of meters (yards) from the GHF site in the area.
