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Will Israel Occupy All of Gaza? How We Got Here
Palestinian Hamas terrorists stand guard on the day of the handover of hostages held in Gaza since the deadly Oct. 7, 2023, attack, as part of a ceasefire and a hostages-prisoners swap deal between Hamas and Israel, in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, Feb. 22, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Hatem Khaled
According to a source, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has reportedly announced a decision to fully occupy all of Gaza, including areas where the hostages are located, while reportedly informing the IDF chief of staff that if the decision does not suit him, then he should resign.
Israel has long avoided entering areas where the hostages were located for fear Hamas might kill them, and has also avoided moves that could be interpreted as even a partial occupation of Gaza, for fear of the responsibilities that would entail. (Until now, Israel maintained a legal blockade, but not an occupation, thus leaving Hamas in local control.)
Here’s how the dramatic change came about, the other options Israel had considered, and the dramatic potential and terrifying risks of this new direction.
Last week, hostage negotiations reached an impasse, with apparently no chance of forward progress. Afterwards, Hamas published videos showing Israeli hostages Evyatar David and Rom Broslovski in a state of starvation that resembles victims of the Nazi concentration camps, and tears at the Israeli soul. Meanwhile a massive, global propaganda campaign propagated the false myth that Gaza is experiencing an unprecedented famine, resulting in international pressure on Israel to take actions that would leave Hamas in power, and potentially even create a Palestinian state as an outgrowth of the October 7 massacre.
Here are the options Israel was forced to consider in recent days:
Option 1: End the war and bring home all the hostages, even if it means leaving Hamas in power.
Recent polls show that 74% of Israelis support this option, as echoed in passionate protests every Saturday evening. Yet this polling question refers to an imaginary deal that is not actually “on the table.”
A careful review of news articles and interviews since October 2023, shows that at no time has Hamas offered or agreed to any deal that would release all the hostages. Qatar and Egypt have suggested frameworks to that effect, however Hamas itself (which is the only party that matters) has never proposed, nor agreed to, any such framework.
This “option” is not actually an option at all.
What if such a deal were on the table?
This is a fantasy, but theoretically speaking, if a deal to return all the hostages were on the table, then Israel should take it … if, and only if, the consensus of Israelis are willing to recognize and pay the true price.
What is the true price? History tells us:
In 2011, Israel negotiated the return of IDF soldier Gilad Shalit from Hamas captivity. At the time, Israelis thought the price was the release of over 1,000 Palestinian security prisoners, including terrorists such as future Hamas leader and October 7 mastermind, Yahya Sinwar.
But that was not the real price.
Once Hamas understood how desperately Israel would negotiate for the return of hostages, the terror organization began planning to take more. The price Israel actually paid for the release of one soldier was, in retrospect, 251 additional hostages, 1,200 murders, mass rape, mass torture, mass beheadings, and the largest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust.
If Israel makes the wrong decisions today, it will invite further such massacres for years to come, not only by Hamas, which is currently weakened, but by the entire Arab world, which is watching events closely. If, and only if, Israelis are willing to risk paying that price, then Israel should make that deal.
This is not an easy (theoretical) choice, but again, such a deal is actually not on the table, so the “dilemma” is a fictional one.
Option 2: Declare sovereignty over parts of Gaza.
Israeli officials have been leaking plans to take parts of Gaza as Israeli territory. The logic is that Hamas’ raison dêtre, its very purpose for existence, relates to conquering and controlling territory.
Hamas is not deterred by loss of infrastructure or lives: to the contrary, the terror group has been planning for years to make that sacrifice: both to slow down IDF operations by manipulating Israeli values and ethics, and also by weaponizing international pressure against Israel. There’s a saying from the world of hi-tech, “it’s not a bug, it’s a feature.” This is true of Hamas’ intentional destruction of its own people and infrastructure.
By contrast, after a ceasefire deal last January that allowed locals to return to their homes in northern Gaza, Palestinians celebrated this return to “their land.” Hamas promised this would be only the first step on the way to conquering their “original homes” throughout Israel. In short: the Palestinian national identity is largely based on conquest and control of territory. Thus, the threat of losing territory should (in theory) motivate Hamas to negotiate.
On the other hand, Israel’s annexation threat has been circulating for about a week now, and if anything, Hamas seems to have become even less flexible, most recently saying it will lay down its arms only upon the establishment of a Palestinian state with full sovereignty and Jerusalem as its capital: this would effectively make October 7 into “Palestine Independence Day.”
Furthermore, regional powers have a history of not wanting sovereignty over Gaza. For example, as part of the peace accords of 1978, Egypt insisted on taking back the Sinai but not Gaza, as the territory’s Palestinian population had become too problematic. The Israeli withdrawal from Gaza in 2005 was highly controversial, including haunting images of IDF soldiers forcibly removing Israelis from their homes. In retrospect, the disengagement laid the initial groundwork for five wars against Hamas and, eventually, the October 7 massacre. Yet there was a reason for the disengagement: protecting Israeli settlements in Gaza was taking up a disproportionate amount of the IDF’s resources, and killing a tragic number of IDF soldiers, something the majority of Israelis were no longer willing to tolerate at that time.
Whether sovereignty in Gaza is right or wrong at this time, there is no question that it will come at a cost: in both IDF resources and Israeli lives. Perhaps that cost is worth it, but Israelis will still have to pay.
Option 3: The Palestinian Authority takes control of Gaza
Last week, in a historic first, the Arab League condemned Hamas and the October 7 massacre (while also condemning Israel on a number of points), and called for an independent Palestinian state, to be governed by the Palestinian Authority.
This is a non-starter for Israelis: the Palestinian Authority participated in and frequently praises the October 7 massacre, has provided millions of dollars in payments to its perpetrators, and in the past two years, there has been a significant increase in terror attacks originating from areas under Palestinian Authority control.
Even more disturbing than the attacks that occurred is the attacks that haven’t: since October 7, 2023, Israel’s Shin Bet security service has prevented over 1,000 attempted large scale terror attacks out of the areas controlled by the Palestinian Authority, including attempted infiltrations in the style of the October 7 massacre.
In short, a Palestinian Authority government in any region next to Israel is a clear and present danger to Israelis.
Option 4: Military occupation
After nearly two years of fighting, one could be forgiven for assuming that all military options have been exhausted. They have not.
First some historical perspective: dismantling a terror organization takes time. America’s fight against Al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden took roughly 10 years, and the war against ISIS took roughly the same. France’s Operation Barkhane against terror groups in the Sahel region of Africa took over eight years, while America’s war against the Taliban took over 25 (and without success). If Israel manages to fulfill its goals in Gaza in roughly two years, that will be, historically speaking, incredibly fast — even though it feels interminable to Israelis.
Yet Israel has a major military weakness in Gaza that is about to change: avoiding the hostages. Israel reportedly knows the location of the hostages, and fearing that Hamas might kill them, has entirely avoided those areas. The unfortunate result has been to create a safe haven for Hamas fighters, and also to preclude any possibility of a rescue operation. Such military action is risky: it will endanger the hostages should Hamas attempt to kill them outright, yet it may also result in their rescue. On the other hand, any delay endangers the lives of the hostages as well: with negotiations at an impasse and recent Hamas videos showing hostages in a dramatically deathly state.
Another danger is that occupation of Gaza requires an investment of IDF resources and risks Israeli lives, just as protecting the Israeli settlements in Gaza prior to 2005.
However, if successful, this operation will reshape the Middle East, provide Israel with much needed security, and turn October 7, 2023, from “Palestine Independence Day” into a cautionary tale for any power that might consider attacking Israel in the future.
Daniel Pomerantz is the CEO of RealityCheck, an organization dedicated to deepening public conversation through robust research studies and public speaking.
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Anti-Jewish Hate Crimes Hit Record High in 2024, FBI Data Shows
FBI agents and NYPD officers work near the scene of a reported shooter situation in the Manhattan borough of New York City, US, July 28, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz
Antisemitic hate crimes in the US continued to add up to record-setting and harrowing statistical figures in 2024, according to the latest data issued by the FBI on Tuesday, prompting calls by Jewish leaders for a society-wide intervention.
Even as hate crimes decreased overall, those perpetrated against Jews increased by 5.8 percent in 2024 to 1,938, the largest total recorded in over 30 years of the FBI’s counting them. Jewish American groups noted that this surge, which included 178 assaults, has been experienced by a demographic group which composes just 2 percent of the US population.
“As the Jewish community is still reeling from two deadly antisemitic attacks in the past few months, the record-high number of anti-Jewish hate crime incidents tracked by the FBI in 2024 is consistent with ADL’s reporting and, more importantly, with the Jewish community’s current lived experience,” Jonathan Greenblatt, chief executive officer of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), said in a statement on Tuesday. “Since the Hamas-led Oct. 7 massacre in Israel, Jewish Americans have not had a moment of respite and have experienced antisemitism at K-12 school, on college campuses, in the public square, at work, and Jewish institutions.”
Ted Deutch, chief executive officer of the American Jewish Committee (AJC), also commented, saying, “Leaders of every kind — teachers, law enforcement officers, government officials, business owners, university presidents — must confront antisemitism head-on. Jews are being targeted not just out of hate, but because some wrongly believe that violence or intimidation is justified by global events.”
A striking 69 percent of all religion-based hate crimes that were reported to the FBI in 2024 targeted Jews, with 2,041 out of 2,942 total such incidents being antisemitic in nature. Muslims were targeted the next highest amount as the victims of 256 offences, or about 9 percent of the total.
Antisemitic hate crimes kept federal and local law enforcement agents busy throughout 2024, as previously reported by The Algemeiner.
In November, for example, the US Department of Justice secured the conviction of a Massachusetts man, Joh Reardon, 59, who threatened to perpetrate mass killings of Jews. Over several months, Reardon called Jewish institutions across Massachusetts, proclaiming that he would kill Jewish men, women, and children in their houses of worship. His terroristic menacing included promises to plant bombs in synagogues in the cities of Sharon and Attleboro, as well as making 98 calls to the Israeli Consulate in Boston, a behavior which began on Oct. 7, 2023, and ended just days before his apprehension by law enforcement in January.
In New York City, meanwhile, the Jewish community in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn endured a violent series of robberies and other attacks. In one instance, three masked men attempted to rob a Hasidic man after stalking him through the neighborhood. Before then, two men beat a middle-aged Hasidic man after he refused to surrender his cell phone in compliance with what appears to have been an attempted robbery. Additionally, an African American male smacked a 13-year-old Jewish boy who was commuting to school on his bike in the heavily Jewish neighborhood, and less than a week earlier, an assailant slashed a visibly Jewish man in the face.
The wave of hatred has not relented in 2025.
In June, a gunman murdered two Israeli embassy staffers in Washington, DC, while they exited an event at the Capital Jewish Museum hosted by the American Jewish Committee. The suspect charged for the double murder, 31-year-old Elias Rodriguez from Chicago, yelled “Free Palestine” while being arrested by police after the shooting, according to video of the incident. The FBI affidavit supporting the criminal charges against Rodriguez stated that he told law enforcement he “did it for Gaza.”
Less than two weeks later, a man firebombed a crowd of people who were participating in a demonstration to raise awareness of the Israeli hostages who remain imprisoned by Hamas in Gaza. A victim of the attack, Karen Diamond, 82, later died, having sustained severe, fatal injuries.
Another antisemitic incident motivated by anti-Zionism occurred in San Francisco, where an assailant identified by law enforcement as Juan Diaz-Rivas and others allegedly beat up a Jewish victim in the middle of the night. Diaz-Rivas and his friends approached the victim while shouting “F—k the Jews, Free Palestine,” according to local prosecutors.
“[O]ne of them punched the victim, who fell to the ground, hit his head and lost consciousness,” the San Francisco district attorney’s office said in a statement. “Allegedly, Mr. Diaz-Rivas and others in the group continued to punch and kick the victim while he was down. A worker at a nearby business heard the altercation and antisemitic language and attempted to intervene. While trying to help the victim, he was kicked and punched.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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Families of Oct. 7 Victims Sue Meta for $1 Billion Over Hamas Terror Livestreams
Meta logo is seen in this illustration taken Aug. 22, 2022. Photo: Reuters
Family members whose loved ones’ suffering and murders were streamed on Facebook or Instagram on Oct. 7, 2023, during the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s invasion of and massacre across southern Israel, filed a lawsuit in Tel Aviv District Court on Monday against the social media platforms’ parent company.
The plaintiffs assert that Meta facilitated terrorism by failing to block the live video and also violated the victims’ right to privacy. They seek 4 billion shekels (about $1.15 billion) in damages.
“Our hearts go out to the families affected by Hamas terrorism,” Meta said in a statement responding to the suit. “Our policy designates Hamas as a proscribed organization, and we remove content that supports or glorifies Hamas or the Oct. 7 terrorist attack.”
The lawsuit states that the videos from the attack “trampled the petitioners’ rights in the most harrowing way imaginable” and that “these scenes of brutality, humiliation, and terror are permanently etched into the memories of the victims’ families and the Israeli public as the final moments of their loved ones’ lives.”
Many of the videos remained on the sites for hours after their initial broadcast, according to the lawsuit, which argues that “Facebook and Instagram violated the privacy of the victims, and continue to do so, by enabling the distribution of terror content for profit.”
One of the plaintiffs, Mor Bayder, wrote on Oct. 8, 2023, that “my grandmother, a resident of Kibbutz Nir Oz all her life, was murdered yesterday in a brutal murder by a terrorist in her home … A terrorist came home to her, killed her, took her phone, filmed the horror, and published it on Facebook. This is how we found out.”
Another individual signed on to the suit is Gali Idan, who Hamas held captive for hours and said was “filming constantly.” She stated that “it was clear the livestreaming was part of their operational plan — propaganda aimed at spreading fear. They filmed Maayan’s [her daughter’s] murder, our desperation, our children’s trauma, and forced [her husband] Tsahi to speak into the camera. All of it was broadcast.”
Idan calls Meta “complicit in the infrastructure of terror.”
Stav Arava also came on board as a plaintiff after seeing video of his brother Tomer forced at gunpoint to try and persuade neighbors to exit their home.
Other plaintiffs include families who did not have loved ones at the attacks, but whose minor children witnessed the videos, many of which continue to circulate today. The suit warns that the videos represent “grave harm to the dignity and psychological well-being of platform users — especially youth — who were exposed to raw acts of terror amplified by Meta’s systems.”
On June 6, a group of 41 US lawmakers sent a letter expressing concerns about “disturbing and inflammatory content circulating on your platforms in support of violence and terrorism” to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, then-X CEO Linda Yaccarino, and TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew. “We strongly urge Meta, TikTok, and X to take decisive and transparent steps to curb these dangerous trends and protect all users from the effects of hate and incitement to violence online,” the legislators wrote to the tech leaders.
“For far too long, social media platforms have allowed harmful messages, hashtags, and conspiracy theories to fester and proliferate online, targeting different communities,” the letter stated. “Following Meta’s decision earlier this year to roll back its trust and safety policies, one estimate noted this could lead to individuals encountering at least 277 million more instances of hate speech and other harmful content each year on its platforms. Since these changes, on Facebook alone, Jewish Members of Congress have experienced a fivefold increase of antisemitic harassment on the platform.”
Zuckerberg acknowledged in January when making the change in moderation policies that “this is a trade-off” and “it means that we’re going to catch less bad stuff, but we’ll also reduce the number of innocent people’s posts and accounts that we accidentally take down.”
In a report analyzing the impact of the policy change, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) explained how “it is also possible that the policy change has signaled to hateful users that such abuse will now be tolerated. By allowing hateful content to remain on the platform, Meta is in effect encouraging this content on its platforms.”
Jonathan Greenblatt, the CEO of ADL, said in a Jan. 7 statement that “it is mind blowing how one of the most profitable companies in the world, operating with such sophisticated technology, is taking significant steps back in terms of addressing antisemitism, hate, misinformation and protecting vulnerable & marginalized groups online. The only winner here is Meta’s bottom line and as a result, all of society will suffer.”
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International Muaythai Federation Bans Israeli Representation at All Competitions
People stand next to flags on the day the bodies of deceased Israeli hostages, Oded Lifschitz, Shiri Bibas, and her two children Kfir and Ariel Bibas, who were kidnapped during the deadly Oct. 7, 2023, attack by Hamas, are handed over under the terms of a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel, in Tel Aviv, Israel, Feb. 20, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ammar Awad
The International Federation of Muaythai Associations (IFMA) has banned all representation of Israel at its events and said Israeli athletes must compete under neutral status, following the alleged death of a Palestinian boy who was a member of the Palestinian national Muaythai team.
Ammar Mutaz Hamayel, 13, was allegedly shot in the back by an Israeli soldier near Ramallah in the West Bank, Palestinian media claimed. Soldiers in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) were also accused of detaining Hamayel for two hours before handing him over to a Palestinian ambulance that took him to the hospital, where he was allegedly pronounced dead. Israel has not verified or commented on Hamayel’s death.
The IFMA published a tribute to Hamayel after his alleged death, saluting him as a “young warrior” and saying that “his passion for Muaythai was matched only by the warmth and kindness he shared with all who knew him.” In honor of Hamayel, the IFMA flew its flags at half-mast, its social media profiles went dark, and a moment of silence was held for him at the final of the Asian Championships on June 25. Stephan Fox, the general secretary of IFMA, posted his own tribute to Hameyel on social media.
“When a child, a youth peace ambassador, is killed, silence is no longer an option,” said IFMA President Dr. Sakchye Tapsuwan. “This is not just a tragedy – it is a call to action. We cannot stand by when the innocent pay the price of conflict,” he added. “Sport is meant to protect, empower, and unite – especially for the young. Ammar believed in that. We honor his memory not with silence, but with a stand for justice.”
The IFMA, which is the world governing body for the Thai martial arts and combat sport, published a policy report on July 18 announcing that effective immediately, Israeli national symbols – including the flag, anthem, and emblems – will be “strictly prohibited” at all IFMA-organized and IFMA-sanctioned events. Israeli athletes, team officials, coaches, and delegation members must participate under the status of Authorized Individual Neutrals (AIN), a designation also applied to individuals from Russia and Belarus. “They must not represent their country in any capacity,” according to the new policy. Also, no IFMA or IFMA-affiliated events will be hosted in or supported within Israel until further notice.
The new policy will remain in place until repealed or amended by the IFMA Executive Committee. “The policy reflects IFMA’s commitment to fair play, neutrality, and the protection of the values and integrity of sport in the current complex geopolitical landscape and recent developments,” the organization stated.
The IFMA added that the new policy will not impact the 2025 Youth World Championships in Abu Dhabi set for September. Israeli delegations may compete in the championships with Israeli representation but “all subsequent events will enforce the full neutrality conditions set forth in this policy.”
Muaythai originated hundreds of years ago in Thailand, a Southeast Asian country whose citizens have been constantly impacted by the ongoing Israel-Hamas war. During the Hamas-led deadly massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, terrorists killed more than 40 Thais and kidnapped 31 Thai laborers, some of whom died in captivity, according to the Thai government. Hamas-led Palestinian terrorists abducted more than 250 people in total, including Israelis and foreign nationals.
In June, Israeli military forces retrieved the body of a Thai hostage, Nattapong Pinta, who had been held in Gaza since the attack on Oct. 7, 2023. Pinta was abducted alive from Kibbutz Nir Oz, and was killed during captivity. Last year, four Thai nationals were killed and one was injured in northern Israel by rockets fired from the Lebanon-based terrorist group Hezbollah.