GAZA CITY: Palestinian group Hamas on Thursday accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose government was debating expanding military operations in Gaza, of sacrificing the Israeli hostages held there.
"Netanyahu's plans to escalate the aggression confirm beyond any doubt his desire to get rid of the captives and sacrifice them in pursuit of his personal interests and extremist ideological agenda," Hamas said in a statement.
The statement was issued as Netanyahu was convening his security cabinet to vote on an expansion of the genocidal military campaign in Gaza. Israeli media said it could entail a full military occupation of the Palestinian territory.
Earlier on Thursday US network Fox News aired an interview with Netanyahu in which he said that Israel intends to take control of all of the Gaza Strip but not "keep it" or "govern it."
"In response to the remarks made by war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu, in his interview with Fox News... What he is planning is a continuation of a policy of genocide and forced displacement, through the perpetration of further crimes against our Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip," Hamas said.
The group also slammed Netanyahu for "backtracking on the negotiation track" as Israel unilaterally broke a ceasefire agreement with Hamas in March, and since then, the talks have dragged without being able to reach a solution.
'How much worse could it get?' asks Palestinians
"When will this nightmare end?" wonders Amal Hamada, a 20-year-old displaced woman who, like most Gazans, feels powerless before the threat of full Israeli occupation after 22 months of war.
Rumours that the Israeli government might decide on a full occupation of the Palestinian territory spread from Israel to war-torn Gaza before any official announcement, sowing fear and despair.
Like nearly all Gazans, Hamada has been displaced several times by the war, and ended up in Deir el-Balah in central Gaza, where the Israeli military carried out operations last month for the first time in the war.
"We've lived through many wars before, but nothing like this one. This war is long and exhausting, from one displacement to another. We are worn out," the woman told AFP.
Like her, Ahmad Salem, 45, wonders how things can get worse in a territory that already faces chronic food shortages, mass displacement and daily air strikes.
"We already live each day in anxiety and fear of the unknown. Talk of an expansion of Israeli ground operations means more destruction and more death," Salem told AFP.
"There is no safe space in Gaza. If Israel expands its ground operations again, we'll be the first victims," he said from a camp west of Gaza City where he had found shelter.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was to chair a meeting of his security cabinet later on Thursday to seek approval to expand military operations in Gaza, including in densely populated areas.
'Just animals'
“We read and hear everything in the news... and none of it is in our favour," said 40-year-old Sanaa Abdullah from Gaza City.
"Israel doesn't want to stop. The bombardment continues, the number of martyrs and wounded keeps rising, famine and malnutrition are getting worse, and people are dying of hunger", she said.
"What more could possibly happen to us?"
The Israeli army announced in mid-July that it controlled 75 percent of Gaza, including a broad strip the whole length of the Israeli border and three main military corridors that cut across the territory from east to west.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) says that more than 87 percent of the Gaza Strip is under unrevoked evacuation orders or designated as an Israeli military zone.
The remaining areas are the most densely populated. The city of Khan Yunis in the south, Gaza City in the north, and Deir el-Balah and its adjacent refugee camps in the centre.
"Now they speak of plans to expand their operations as if we are not even human, just animals or numbers," Abdullah laments.
"A new ground invasion means new displacement, new fear and we won’t even find a place to hide", she told AFP.
"What will happen if they start another ground operation? Only God is with us."
A widening of the war "would risk catastrophic consequences for millions of Palestinians and could further endanger the lives of the remaining hostages in Gaza", senior UN official Miroslav Jenca told the Security Council on Tuesday.
Israel's genocidal war in Gaza has so far killed at least 61,258 Palestinians, more than half of it being women and children. It has also targeted and killed over 200 journalists, more than 1000 healthcare workers and aid workers.
