Netanyahu fires those who oppose the Gaza occupation, and Zamir, the Israeli Chief of Staff, is fired.

The hawks have decided: Gaza, what remains, must be occupied. And if the Chief of Staff disagrees, he will suffer the same fate as his predecessor: fired on the spot. The Prime Minister's Office confirmed to the Times of Israel that Benjamin Netanyahu will convene the Security Cabinet today at 6:00 PM (5:00 PM GMT) at his office in Jerusalem to discuss war plans for Gaza.

"The cabinet is expected to approve the full military occupation of the Strip at tomorrow's meeting," the Times of Israel reports, despite the IDF chief of staff and other army generals warning of the risks of the operation. Military authorities fear heavy losses among the armed forces if Israel decides to proceed with its plan to occupy the entire Gaza Strip. This was reported by the public broadcaster Kan, which said defense officials estimated that "dozens" of soldiers could be killed and many wounded during the operation. As reported by the Times of Israel, officials also reiterated their concern for the hostages still held by Hamas, believing they could be killed by their captors if the Israel Defense Forces were to approach the sites where they are believed to be held, or even inadvertently by Israeli troops.

Amos Harel, one of Israel's most authoritative political analysts, writes in Haaretz : "In his current term, the prime minister has defied all expectations. He no longer hesitates to do things no one would have thought possible: he fired a cabinet chief and a defense minister (and is now trying to fire the attorney general) and attacked Iranian nuclear facilities. However, the prime minister must be aware of the possible consequences of dismissing Zamir (the current IDF Chief of Staff, ed.). [The dismissal of the Chief of Staff due to a disagreement over an offensive operation will profoundly upset the army, unlike what would have happened with the departure or resignation of Herzl Halevi and Yoav Gallant . Zamir had no direct role in the failures of October 7. Assuming Netanyahu still cares about such things, his dismissal could trigger an avalanche of insubordination among the soldiers or awaken a new movement of the "Four Mothers." The point is that there are things that not even the dismissal of a Chief of Staff can obscure. Through its mistakes and shortcomings, the government has placed Israel in a precarious strategic position in Gaza. Among these are strategic errors almost as great as those committed before October 7. Even if the father, the son, and the Holy Spirit were to attack Zamir now, they would achieve neither victory in the war nor an agreement for the release of the hostages!" concludes Harel.

Israel already occupies the Gaza Strip, but refuses to allow a change of government there. Israel Ziv, acting Major General and former head of the IDF's Directorate of Operations, told Israeli radio, expressing frustration with the way Israel is conducting operations in Gaza . "The Gaza Strip is already occupied," Ziv said. "It has been occupied several times. We have occupied every place four or five times so far... We created the conditions for a change of government after a military operation. To drain the swamp, not to hunt mosquitoes. I have never heard of a victorious army hunting down every single terrorist or weapon. At this point, this is not a military operation. It is politics without military logic." "We went to war to create the conditions for change in the Strip, and those conditions have been created. Hamas does not control the Strip. It is in hiding. It does not fight; it does not have the means to offer resistance. Its entire military and governmental system has been completely dismantled,” he adds, listing two possible options for who should govern Gaza after Hamas: “ The first option is the Palestinian National Authority, which would represent Hamas’s greatest defeat. The second is part of Egypt’s plan for a caretaker government for the next five years. The Egyptians are ready to contribute to its creation and train non-Hamas police officers.” In any case, if the situation requires it, the IDF could intervene.

Dani Miran, father of hostage Omri, has launched an appeal against the planned fighting in the central Gaza Strip: " If the war resumes there, it will be a death sentence for my son, if he isn't already dead ," he declared . "They will kill him, and his blood will be on the hands of the responsible leaders. A stigma will follow their families for generations." "I told Prime Minister Netanyahu that occupying Gaza is a terrible idea; you can't undertake such an action without the support of the majority of the population. The people of Israel are not interested in this war. We will pay too high a price," opposition leader Yair Lapid said after meeting with the prime minister. Major General Yonatan Shalev, a Magellan fighter and founder of the organization "Shoulder to Shoulder," harshly criticized the government, which is promoting the draft law on exemptions for Orthodox Christians just as it is considering expanding the war in Gaza , Channel 12 reports. "During a fierce war, the draft evasion machine is working at full speed," he said. "When divisions are still preparing to enter battle, the government is promoting the mass evasion of tens of thousands of qualified candidates. The IDF is short 10,000 fighters, and Boaz Bismuth is receiving orders from ultra-Orthodox activists. We say: it will not happen before our eyes."

Several news crews have recently managed to film and photograph the destruction in the Gaza Strip by boarding airlifts carrying aid. Images of apocalyptic devastation were shot by the private French television station Métropole 6 (M6) and broadcast internationally by Reuters. Similar footage was aired Monday evening in a special on the British channel ITV, during which correspondent Emma Murphy then recalled estimates that a total of "100,000 tons of explosives" have been dropped on the Gaza Strip in over twenty months of Israeli raids: a quantity greater than that of the combined carpet bombings of "London, Dresden, and Hamburg," much larger areas, during World War II. Murphy had already flown over the Strip a year and a half ago: “It seemed like a hopeless scenario to me, but now it is incredibly worse: the amount of additional damage done in the last 17 months is astonishing,” he said.

Lorenzo Tondo and Alessio Mamo, correspondent and photographer respectively for The Guardian, both Italian, were also able to fly over and publish their shots: "Gaza was a vibrant and lively place until less than two years ago, despite all the hardships its inhabitants already faced then. Its markets were crowded, its streets filled with children. That Gaza no longer exists: it was not buried by volcanic ash, nor erased from history, but razed to the ground by an Israeli military campaign that left behind a place that looks like the result of an apocalypse," is the opening line of the British newspaper's article.

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Umberto De Giovannangeli