Israeli forces launched heavy strikes on Gaza on Sunday, hours after a senior Israeli official issued an ultimatum to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to develop a post-war vision for the besieged enclave.
Benny Gantz, a member of Israel’s war cabinet, demanded that Netanyahu agree to a plan – a plan that would clarify who would rule Gaza after the end of the war with Hamas – by June 8, otherwise Gantz and his centrist party would leave the coalition in wartime.
The demands of Gantz, a retired general and former defense minister, show the latest divide among Israel’s top leaders. On Wednesday, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant also pushed Netanyahu for clarity on the post-war Gaza Strip. Netanyahu, Gantz and Gallant are the three voting members of the War Cabinet, brought together in a show of unity after the brutal Hamas attacks on October 7.
Gantz released a six-point plan that would allow Israel to retain security control of Gaza but establish a temporary system of U.S.-European-Arab-Palestinian civil administration in the territory. It would also require fair national service for all Israelis, including ultra-Orthodox Jews, who are now exempt from military conscription.
US national security adviser Jake Sullivan was scheduled to meet with Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders on Sunday. Sullivan was expected to push the longtime U.S. ally to pursue Hamas in a more targeted manner, particularly in the southern city of Rafah, where hundreds of thousands of people fled after more than a million Palestinians displaced people found refuge there to flee the fighting elsewhere in Gaza.
Despite global protests over the Rafah invasion, Netanyahu has vowed to continue crushing militants responsible for the Oct. 7 border attacks that left more than 1,200 Israelis dead and sparked war.
Netanyahu on Rafah:There is ‘no humanitarian catastrophe’ in Rafah, insists Netanyahu
Developments:
∎ At least 28 Palestinians were killed Sunday, most in a strike on a house in Nuseirat, central Gaza, health officials and Hamas said. In a statement, Gaza’s Civil Emergency Service said rescue teams also found the bodies of 150 Palestinians killed by the Israeli army in recent days, and that 300 homes were hit by aerial and ground fire. Israelis.
∎ At least 35,456 Palestinians have been killed and 79,476 injured in the Israeli military offensive since October 7, the Gaza Health Ministry said in a statement on Sunday.
∎ A new poll puts Netanyahu’s approval rating at 32%, the Times of Israel reported. The approval rating of Gantz, Netanyahu’s main opponent, was only slightly higher, at 35 percent, in the Channel 12 poll. Gallant received a score of 43%.
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Saudi Crown Prince, US National Security Advisor Meet on Gaza and Bilateral Agreement
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Sullivan met to discuss a nearly “finalized” draft agreement between Washington and Riyadh, the official Saudi Press Agency announced on Sunday.
The talks target U.S. security guarantees and a civil nuclear cooperation deal, Reuters reported. They come amid reports that the United States and Saudi Arabia are close to reaching a broader deal that could allow Saudi Arabia to recognize Israel for the first time and possibly chart a path toward a Palestinian statehood, something Netanyahu resisted.
Fighting intensifies in northern Gaza
Fighting resumed in northern Gaza on Sunday as Israeli forces advanced through the narrow streets of Jabalia, fearing that Hamas would regain a foothold in areas cleared earlier in the war.
The Israeli military said it was “operating to identify armed terrorist cells and… carrying out dozens of strikes to assist forces operating on the ground” in the Jabalia area, the largest of Gaza’s eight historic refugee camps .
“The situation is very difficult” in Jabalia, Abdel-Kareem Radwan, 48, told The Associated Press. He said Israeli warplanes “hit anything that moves.”
Contributor: Reuters
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