[News] Israel’s Netanyahu Says He Ordered Forces to Occupy 70 Percent of Gaza

[Anti-Imperialist News]

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Israel’s Netanyahu Says He Ordered Forces to Occupy 70 Percent of Gaza
Quds News Network
May 28, 2026
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ICC-wanted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday that
he had directed the Israeli military to take control of 70 percent of the
Gaza Strip as a “start,” amid relentless Israeli attacks and ongoing
ceasefire violations.

Occupied Palestine (QNN)- ICC-wanted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu said on Thursday that he had directed the Israeli military to
take control of 70 percent of the Gaza Strip as a “start,” amid relentless
Israeli attacks and ongoing ceasefire violations.

During an interview at a conference in the occupied West Bank, Netanyahu
said that Israel is “tightening” its grip on Hamas. “We are now in 60% of
the territory of the Gaza Strip. We were at 50%. We moved to 60%,” he said.

When someone in the audience shouted that Israel should take the entire
besieged enclave, Netanyahu said “we are going in order”, according to The
Times of Israel.

“My directive is to move to — take it step by step — first of all 70. Let’s
start with that.”

In late April, the Israeli military issued maps to international aid groups
that showed the forces already controlling approximately 64% of Gaza by
expanding the so-called “yellow line” westward across Gaza in the seven
months since the ceasefire, forcing approximately 2 million Palestinians
into a shrinking fraction of the coastal enclave’s shattered territory.

According to a new report by the Wall Street Journal, Israel now holds
around 59% of the enclave, up from 53% at the start of the US-brokered
ceasefire in October.

On Tuesday, Hamas said Israel’s moving of the line “constitutes an explicit
and ongoing undermining of the ceasefire agreement, a serious violation of
its provisions, and an exposed attempt to impose new facts on the ground by
force, with the aim of entrenching military control over the Strip and
undermining any real chance of stabilizing the situation or making
de-escalation efforts succeed.”

Nickolay Mladenov, a Bulgarian diplomat who serves as the official in
charge of implementing the agreement, said earlier this month that the
“yellow line” could turn “into a fence or wall, a permanent separation of
Gaza.”

There has been a spike in Israeli attacks in the war-torn Strip despite the
ceasefire.

Israel has violated the ceasefire which took effect in October more than
3,000 times, killing hundreds and blocking the entry of much-needed aid.

Israeli forces have killed more than 870 Palestinians since the ceasefire,
including over 300 children, women, and the elderly.

Over 72,700 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks since the war
began on October 7, 2023.

United Nations human rights chief Volker Turk condemned Israel’s recent
attacks in the Gaza Strip, saying that “the unrelenting pattern of
killings” reflects Israel’s “sweeping impunity”.

“Palestinians are still being killed and injured in what is left of their
homes, shelters and tents of displaced families, on the streets, in
vehicles, at a medical facility and a classroom,” Turk said.

The yellow line is a non-physical demarcation line separating the Israeli
occupation forces deployment from certain areas of Gaza, while occupying
more than half of the Strip. The line divides Gaza into two zones: an
eastern area under Israeli military control and a western area where
Palestinians live, were forcibly displaced to, and are under constant
Israeli threat of attacks.

During a visit to the Gaza Strip in December, the Israeli military’s chief
of staff, Eyal Zamir, said unequivocally that the “Yellow Line” is “a new
border line”.

Haaretz previously reported that the Israeli military is turning the
“yellow line” into a physical border, despite it being initially intended
as a temporary demarcation. The report added that there is currently no
detailed mechanism regulating a withdrawal from it.

The Defence Minister, Israel Katz, said on Wednesday that Israel’s ultimate
aim was to expel large numbers of Palestinians from Gaza in what he claimed
to be “voluntary migration” but human rights activists describe as a
long-term plan for ethnic cleansing by making living conditions inside Gaza
intolerable.

Muhammad Shehada, a visiting fellow at the European Council on Foreign
Relations, said: “Netanyahu is now declaring the whole Trump deal, the
framework for Gaza, to be null and void. That’s what it means in a
nutshell. There’s no other way to spell it out.”

Israeli forces have systematically destroyed the remaining buildings in
their zone, so its expansion to 70% of Gaza would mean that the 2.2 million
Palestinians who have survived the war would be crammed into less than a
third of their original territory, which was already overcrowded.

“The conditions there are already appalling. It is the single most
overcrowded place on the face of the planet,” Shehada said.

“Every square metre has another displaced family, another makeshift tent,
or some sort of improvised shelter on it. So it would be a death sentence
for a lot of people who physically have no place to go.”
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