A Palestinian youth struggles to ferry a cart of water containers filled at a distribution point at the Nuseirat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip on Monday — AFP JERUSALEM, May 05 (BBC/AFP): Israel's security cabinet has approved a plan to expand its military offensive against Hamas which includes the "capture" of Gaza and the holding of its territory, according to an Israeli official.
It is also said to include moving the 2.1 million Palestinians in Gaza towards the south, which could worsen the humanitarian crisis.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called it a "good plan" because it would achieve the goals of defeating Hamas and returning its remaining hostages, the official said.
The cabinet also approved, in principle, a plan to deliver and distribute humanitarian aid through private companies, which would end a two-month blockade the UN says has caused severe food shortages.
The UN and other aid agencies have said the proposal would be a breach of basic humanitarian principles and that they will not co-operate.
Hamas said Israel's proposal amounted to "political blackmail".
19 killed in Israeli
strikes on Gaza
Gaza's civil defence agency said two Israeli air strikes killed at least 19 people in the war-ravaged Palestinian territory's north early Monday.
"Our teams found 15 martyrs and 10 wounded, mostly children and women, after an Israeli strike on three apartments" northwest of Gaza City, said the agency's spokesman, Mahmud Bassal.
Four other people were killed and four wounded in a strike on a house in Beit Lahiya, north of Gaza City, he told AFP.
The Israeli military has yet to comment on the reported strikes.
It has intensified aerial bombardments and expanded ground operations in the Gaza Strip since resuming its offensive in the Palestinian territory on March 18.
Israel blocked the entry of all aid into the besieged territory of about 2.4 million people on March 2.
Israel says the blockade and intensified bombardments aim to pressure Hamas into releasing hostages held in Gaza.
Militants in the territory still hold 58 hostages seized in Hamas's October 2023 attack on Israel.
The army says 34 of them are dead. Hamas is also holding the remains of an Israeli soldier killed in a previous war in Gaza in 2014.
The Hamas attack resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.
Israel's retaliatory military offensive has killed at least 52,535 people in Gaza, the majority of them civilians, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.
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