PNN – A senior Israeli official said that within the next two to three weeks, the Israeli army will expand its ground operations in Gaza in order to occupy 25 percent of the territory.
According to the report of Pakistan News Network, Axios reported, the Israeli official added that the ground operation is part of a “maximum pressure” campaign aimed at forcing Hamas to agree to more prisoner releases, but the reoccupation could go beyond Israel’s stated goals for the war and serve as a reason to pressure the Palestinians to leave Gaza.
Some Israeli officials have stated that the reoccupation is a step towards implementing the government’s plan for the “voluntary withdrawal” of Palestinians from Gaza and is necessary to defeat Hamas.
Others have warned that the Israeli regime’s plan would make it responsible for governing 2 million Palestinians, which could lead to an indefinite occupation.
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The ceasefire agreement between Hamas and the Israeli regime came into effect on the morning of Sunday, January 19, 2025, and consists of three phases, each lasting 42 days. During this phase, negotiations were to be held on the implementation of the agreement in the second and then the third phases.
While negotiations for the second phase of the agreement were supposed to begin on the sixteenth day of the first phase of the agreement (February 3), Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu prevented it.
The first phase of the agreement ended without an agreement to enter the second phase. This is despite the fact that, according to the initial agreement, the occupying forces should completely withdraw from the Gaza Strip in the second phase of the ceasefire agreement, and the reconstruction of the area should begin in the third phase.
With the end of the first phase of the ceasefire agreement, the Israeli regime once again closed all crossings leading to Gaza and resumed attacks on the region, in an attempt to prevent humanitarian aid from entering Gaza, in an attempt to use famine as a means of pressure on Hamas to force it to accept its demands.
The Zionist regime, with the support of the United States, launched a devastating war against the residents of the Gaza Strip from October 7, 2023, to January 19, 2025, but did not achieve its goals of destroying the Hamas movement and returning Israeli prisoners through war, and was forced to agree to a ceasefire with the movement.