Israel's political-security cabinet approved a plan on August 8, 2025, for the military to take control of Gaza City, marking another major expansion of the campaign against Hamas nearly two years after the October 7, 2023 attacks that triggered the war.
The decision followed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's statement that Israel intended to establish military control over the Gaza Strip while eventually transferring civilian governance to unspecified Arab actors. The plan approved by the cabinet was narrower than that public declaration, focusing initially on Gaza City rather than an immediate occupation of the entire territory.
According to Reuters, Netanyahu said Israel did not seek to govern Gaza permanently and instead wanted a security perimeter before transferring administration to Arab forces. At the time, however, no Arab government had publicly agreed to take on such a role under the conditions Israel described.
Another attempt to convert military pressure into a political outcome
The Gaza City plan revived a central strategic question that had followed Israel throughout the war: whether additional territorial operations could produce a durable political result if no broadly accepted postwar governing arrangement had been established.
Israeli forces had already operated repeatedly in Gaza City and other areas after initially withdrawing from positions where Hamas later re-established activity. Israel argued that continued military pressure was necessary to dismantle Hamas's remaining military and governing capabilities and secure the return of hostages.
Critics of the expansion, including relatives of hostages and some former Israeli security officials, warned that a wider ground campaign could endanger captives still held in Gaza and deepen the humanitarian emergency without resolving the question of who would govern the territory afterward.
About 50 hostages were believed to remain in Gaza when the plan was approved, with roughly 20 believed to be alive, according to Reuters reporting at the time.
Disagreement inside Israel over the risks
The proposed Gaza City operation exposed tensions between Netanyahu's government and parts of Israel's security establishment. Israeli military officials had warned that occupying additional densely populated territory would require substantial forces and could place both soldiers and hostages at greater risk.
Netanyahu's far-right coalition partners, meanwhile, had pushed for a broader takeover of Gaza and opposed ending the war before Hamas was fully dismantled.
Thousands of Israelis later demonstrated in Tel Aviv against the Gaza City plan, with hostage families and other protesters demanding a ceasefire agreement that would secure the captives' release. Reuters reported that the prospect of an expanded offensive intensified an already sharp domestic dispute over whether military pressure or negotiations offered the better path to recovering the hostages.
Netanyahu defended the strategy, arguing that increased military pressure could force Hamas toward terms more acceptable to Israel. On August 10, he said the operation was intended to target Hamas's remaining strongholds and bring the war to an end on a relatively short timetable.
The unresolved question of postwar governance
The government's stated goal went beyond capturing territory. Netanyahu said Israel wanted neither Hamas nor the Palestinian Authority to govern Gaza after the war and proposed eventual administration by Arab actors while Israel retained security control.
That approach faced major diplomatic obstacles. Arab governments had repeatedly linked participation in Gaza's reconstruction or security arrangements to a broader political process involving Palestinians and, in many cases, a credible path toward Palestinian statehood.
Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty said Egypt could consider an international security presence in Gaza, but within a diplomatic framework rather than as a substitute for a political settlement. More broadly, Arab governments had not publicly endorsed taking responsibility for Gaza under an arrangement imposed solely by Israel.
This left a gap between the military objective and the proposed political end state: Israel could potentially seize additional territory without securing agreement from the actors it hoped would eventually administer it.
A worsening humanitarian emergency
The cabinet decision was made as humanitarian conditions in Gaza were deteriorating sharply.
On August 6, 2025, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported that an Integrated Food Security Phase Classification alert had found famine thresholds had been reached for food consumption across much of Gaza and for acute malnutrition in Gaza City, although that alert itself did not yet constitute a formal famine classification.
Later that month, the IPC formally confirmed famine in Gaza Governorate, based on conditions assessed as of August 15, and warned that it was projected to spread to other parts of the territory.
The Israeli government disputed accusations that it was deliberately starving Gaza and said it was facilitating humanitarian aid while accusing Hamas of diverting supplies. UN agencies and humanitarian organizations, however, repeatedly reported that restrictions, insecurity, damaged infrastructure, displacement and the breakdown of distribution systems were preventing sufficient food and other essential supplies from reaching civilians.
What happened after the Gaza City decision
The Gaza City operation did proceed. Israeli forces intensified attacks around the city in late August and subsequently advanced farther into the urban area while ordering civilians to move south.
The campaign did not, however, produce an immediate political settlement. A U.S.-backed ceasefire eventually took effect on October 10, 2025. Under its initial arrangements, Israeli forces retained control over substantial parts of Gaza while Hamas remained the dominant armed Palestinian organization in areas outside Israeli control.
By November 2025, Reuters reported that Israeli forces controlled about 53% of the territory under the ceasefire arrangement, while Hamas had reasserted local control in areas from which Israeli troops had withdrawn. Plans for a transitional governing authority, further Israeli withdrawals, a multinational security force, Hamas's disarmament and large-scale reconstruction remained unresolved.
Those later developments illustrated the problem already visible when the Gaza City operation was approved: battlefield control and a sustainable postwar political order were separate challenges.
The central strategic dilemma remains
At the time Netanyahu announced the Gaza City plan, his government argued that greater military pressure was necessary to defeat Hamas and improve Israel's negotiating position. Opponents argued that additional operations risked extending the conflict without establishing an agreed governing alternative.
Subsequent events showed that neither territorial gains nor a ceasefire automatically settled Gaza's political future. Questions over Hamas's disarmament, Israeli security control, Palestinian governance, Arab participation, reconstruction and the scope of further Israeli withdrawals continued well beyond the original Gaza City decision.
The strategic issue therefore was not simply whether Israel could capture more of Gaza City. It was whether military control could be translated into a political arrangement accepted by enough Israeli, Palestinian, Arab and international actors to endure after the fighting stopped.
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