ANKARA

Israel aims to fully occupy the Gaza Strip through its renewed onslaught on the enclave, Culture Minister Miki Zohar said Monday.

“Such a move endangers those who remain in captivity, but there is no choice left,” Zohar, a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party, told Israeli public broadcaster KAN.

He said the ongoing military assault will force the Palestinian group Hamas to release the 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 military onslaught on Gaza and occupy the territory.

Far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich 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 Israel’s Channel 13

"We are finally taking control of all humanitarian aid so that it does not become supplies for Hamas,” he added.

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 said that humanitarian aid will be distributed under an 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."

Far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir reaffirmed his insistence on starving Palestinians in Gaza as part of the ongoing genocidal war.

According to Israel’s Channel 14, Ben-Gvir said “the only aid that should enter Gaza is for the purpose of voluntary migration,” a clear expression of a deportation agenda aimed at emptying the enclave of its indigenous population under the cover of the genocidal war.

US President Donald Trump has repeatedly called to “take over” Gaza and resettle its population to develop it into a tourist destination. His plan was rejected by the Arab world and many other nations, who say it amounts to ethnic cleansing.

Israeli estimates suggest that 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.