Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday vowed to intensify the ongoing war on Palestine’s Gaza and move forward with a plan proposed by US President Donald Trump to forcibly displace Palestinians from the besieged territory.
Speaking at the start of a Cabinet meeting, Netanyahu claimed that “a combination of military and political pressure is the only way to recover the hostages, not the empty slogans I hear in TV studios”, according to the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth.
His remarks were a direct criticism of prominent Israeli analysts and families of the captives, who have warned that Israel’s military actions are endangering the lives of the hostages and accused him of prioritising personal political gains over their rescue.
Netanyahu insisted that “military pressure is working”, claiming that “it is crushing Hamas’s capabilities and creating conditions for the hostages’ release”.
“We will implement the Trump Plan, the voluntary migration plan. This is our strategy, and we are ready to discuss it at any time,” he added.
While the world saw a pause in fighting, Israel used the lull to reload, rearm, and unleash a deadlier phase of its assault on Gaza—one defined by cutting-edge weaponry and devastating precision.
Renewed Israeli aggression
On March 4, an emergency Arab summit on Palestine adopted a five-year, $53 billion plan to rebuild Gaza without displacing its residents.
Israel and the US rejected the initiative, instead backing Trump’s proposal to relocate Palestinians from Gaza to neighbouring countries such as Egypt and Jordan, both of which have strongly opposed the idea, along with other Arab states and international organisations.
The Israeli army launched a surprise aerial assault on Gaza on March 18, killing over 920 people, wounding more than 2,000 others, and shattering the ceasefire and prisoner exchange agreement.
More than 50,200 Palestinians have so far been killed, mostly women and children, and over 114,000 wounded in a brutal Israeli military onslaught on Gaza since October 2023.
The International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants last November for Netanyahu and his former defence 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.
