Israel Seeks to ‘Expand’ War on Gaza

Israel’s security cabinet is expected to decide this week whether to expand the nearly 22-month war in the Gaza Strip and on the future of ceasefire negotiations, Israeli media reported.

Channel 12 television said the security cabinet will discuss the option of intensifying attacks on Gaza, even at the risk of endangering the lives of Israeli hostages in the enclave.

The plan has divided Israel’s leadership.

Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s military secretary Maj. Gen. Roman Gofman and Cabinet Secretary Yossi Fuchs reportedly support expanding the offensive.

Advocates for pursuing a ceasefire and prisoner exchange include Israeli army Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir, Foreign Minister Gideon Saar, Shas Party leader Aryeh Deri — who recently withdrew from the government — National Security Adviser Tzachi Hanegbi, Mossad Director David Barnea, Nitzan Alon, who is overseeing the hostage file for the military, and members of the Shin Bet negotiating team.

Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz are undecided on whether to intensify attacks or continue negotiations, according to the report.

Channel 13 also said that Zamir expressed to his close circle concerns that expanding the attacks could endanger the lives of the hostages and that he would not approve such moves without clear political orders.

Separately, the Haaretz daily reported that preparations are underway for expanding Israeli military operations in Gaza, which is already facing a humanitarian disaster due to the ongoing assault.

The report said that Zamir is expected to approve a “phased attack plan.” Under the new plan, “sensitive areas” — including refugee camps sheltering Palestinians who have been displaced multiple times — would be targeted in ground offensives.

The army has so far avoided such ground attacks in these areas due to the Israeli hostages, the report said, but the new plan is expected to be presented to the government.

A senior Israeli official told Haaretz that “there is a growing understanding that Hamas is not interested in a deal.”

“Therefore, the prime minister is pushing for the release of hostages as part of a military resolution, combined with the delivery of humanitarian aid to areas outside combat zones and, as much as possible, to regions not under Hamas control.”

The Israeli army, rejecting international calls for a ceasefire, has pursued a brutal offensive on Gaza since Oct. 7, 2023, killing more than 60,800 Palestinians, most of them women and children.

Last November, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza, according to Anadolu.

Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its war on the enclave.

CrossFireArabia

Dr. Marwan Asmar holds a PhD from Leeds University and is a freelance writer specializing on the Middle East. He has worked as a journalist since the early 1990s in Jordan and the Gulf countries, and been widely published, including at Albawaba, Gulf News, Al Ghad, World Press Review and others.

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Moshe Ya’alon: ‘Israelis Are Becoming ‘Judeo-Nazis’

CrossFireArabia
August 2, 2026

As per The Palestine Project

“Turning Israelis into Judeo-Nazis”. Moshe Ya’alon described what is happening in the occupied territory as a “disgrace for generations”.

“The Israeli government is encouraging Jewish pogromists to dispossess Palestinians of their land through abuse, including shooting at them,” Ya’alon told Ynet (June 14, 2026)

Ya’alon spent decades in the Israeli military and is known to have taken part in the 1982 invasion of Lebanon, the violent suppression of the first and second Palestinian intifadas, and the 2014 war on Gaza.

But in recent years, the 75-year-old has adopted a more critical tone towards the current government, accusing it in 2024 of carrying out ethnic cleansing in Gaza.

Reflecting on his time as army commander in the West Bank, Ya’alon said that he had acted to prevent the occupation from turning Israelis into “Judeo-Nazis”, as the late Israeli scholar Yeshayahu Leibowitz had once warned.

“Today, I can’t say he was wrong”

MEE https://tinyurl.com/3tyv5x7u

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Israeli Settler Violence Reach ‘All Time High’

CrossFireArabia
August 2, 2026

Violence in the occupied West Bank is worsening as the Israeli Government continues to approve new settlements while settlers and Israeli security forces have “often” acted together to attack local Palestinian communities, the UN’s human rights office (OHCHR) warned on Wednesday.

As of 20 July, the agency reports that 18 Palestinians have died this year in attacks involving settlers. Twelve died at the hands of settlers, three by Israeli forces and responsibility for the remaining three deaths is disputed.

Since Friday, eight Palestinians, including a boy, and two members of the Israeli military have also been killed in the region.

The number of settler attacks has increased each year since 2023 following the brutal Hamas attacks on southern Israeli communities, rising to 1,835 last year, according to the UN’s humanitarian aid office (OCHA).

There were about 190 attacks per month in the first four months of 2026, putting the West Bank on a trajectory to reach more than 2,000 attacks by the end of the year.

Alongside security forces, Israeli settlers in the West Bank, with financial incentives from the government, frequently attack families, burn mosques and destroy and confiscate property, OHCHR reported.

Movement restrictions preventing Palestinians from accessing essential services are now tighter than ever, the office added.

“We are alarmed by the Israeli Government’s announcement to further increase the number of settlements and outposts and open calls by Israeli leaders for revenge and collective punishment against Palestinian communities, accompanied by threats to turn the West Bank into another Gaza,” OHCHR spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani said.

Two-State solution must remain

Speaking from Jerusalem on Friday, UN Deputy Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Ramiz Alakbarov called the continued loss of life in the West Bank “deeply alarming”, urging Israel to hold perpetrators accountable and all actors to pursue a two-state solution.

“There is no military or violent solution to this conflict,” Mr. Alakbarov said.

In September, the General Assembly endorsed the New York Declaration, calling for a two-State solution, though Israel and the US voted against it.

The escalating violence in the West Bank comes two years after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled in an advisory opinion that Israel’s occupation of Gaza, East Jerusalem and the West Bank since 1967 is illegal and that countries should not recognise Israel’s actions related to the occupation. Israel quickly condemned the ruling.

Briefing the Security Council in New York on Tuesday, Mr. Alakbarov noted that Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich recently announced the approval of several new settlements, which the peace coordinator called “illegal under international law”.

“I call upon all parties to take urgent steps to reverse the dangerous trajectory in the West Bank,” he said.

On Monday, Israeli troops forcibly entered a UN facility in East Jerusalem where hundreds of Palestinian refugees receive free vocational training each year. The UN and its partners in the occupied territories condemned the action, which violates international law.

Call to end occupation

OHCHR’s Ms. Shamdasani reiterated on Wednesday the UN’s call for countries to work together to “bring an end to the Israeli occupation” of the West Bank.

“With attacks by Israeli settlers, and the creation of settlements and outposts hitting an all-time high, third States must act urgently and in unison to halt the continuing killing and dispossession of the Palestinian people,” she said. UN News