![Smoke rises as flames glow from the area following an Israeli military strike on Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza, on May 3, 2025. [Abdalhkem Abu Riash - Anadolu Agency]](https://i0.wp.com/www.middleeastmonitor.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/AA-20250503-37837450-37837440-SMOKE_RISES_AFTER_ISRAELI_STRIKE_ON_NORTHERN_GAZAS_BEIT_LAHIA-1.jpg?fit=1200%2C800&ssl=1)
The goal of Israel’s renewed onslaught is the “complete occupation of the Gaza Strip,” Israeli Culture Minister Miki Zohar said on Monday, Anadolu Agency reports.
“Such a move endangers those who remain in captivity,” Zohar, a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud Party, told the public broadcaster KAN. “But there is no choice left.”
The Israeli minister claimed that the ongoing military assault will force the Palestinian group Hamas to release Israeli captives and go into exile outside Gaza.
Netanyahu’s office said early Monday that Israel’s Security Cabinet unanimously approved a plan to expand its ongoing military onslaught on Gaza and occupy territories inside the enclave.
Far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, for his part, said the Israeli army will not withdraw from Gaza.
“We are finally going to occupy the Gaza Strip. We will stop being afraid of the word ‘occupation,’” Smotrich told Israeli Channel 13.
READ: Israel army chief says Gaza war goals ‘unachievable’ amid troop shortage
“We are finally taking control of all humanitarian aid, so that it does not become supplies for Hamas,” he claimed.
The extremist minister said that Gaza’s population will be displaced to the south of the enclave in the area between Rafah and Khan Younis, where he claimed that humanitarian aid will be distributed under Israeli security watch.
Smotrich said that once the new offensive begins in Gaza, there will be “no retreat from the territories we have conquered, not even in exchange for hostages.”
Israeli estimates suggest 59 captives remain in Gaza, with 24 believed alive. In contrast, more than 9,500 Palestinians remain imprisoned in Israel under harsh conditions, including reports of torture, starvation, and medical neglect, according to Palestinian and Israeli rights organizations.
More than 52,500 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza in a brutal Israeli onslaught since October 2023, most of them women and children.
The International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants in November for Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.
Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its war on the enclave.
READ: Israel approves plan to expand Gaza onslaught, occupy territories