By Tal Shalev, Dana Karni, Christian Edwards, Ivana Kottasová, CNN

(CNN) — Israel’s security cabinet has approved a plan from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to occupy Gaza City, the Prime Minister’s Office said Friday.

“The IDF (Israel Defense Forces) will prepare for the takeover of Gaza City while ensuring the provision of humanitarian aid to the civilian population outside the combat zones,” the office said following a hours-long meeting of the security cabinet that went long into the night.

Mass protests erupted across Israel as the country’s security cabinet was meeting to decide on a full reoccupation of Gaza, a move that would mark a major escalation of the war.

Despite international pressure, opposition from the Israeli military and domestic fears the operation will endanger hostages, Netanyahu has pushed for a complete takeover of the besieged enclave nearly two years into the war.

Details of the plan remain unclear but the Prime Minister’s Office said “an overwhelming majority of cabinet ministers believed that the alternative plan presented would neither achieve Hamas’s defeat nor bring back the hostages.”

In an interview with Fox News shortly before the security cabinet meeting, Netanyahu was asked whether Israel plans to take military control of all of Gaza.

“We intend to,” Netanyahu said. He claimed Israel is aiming to “remove Hamas” in Gaza, before handing the territory to “civilian governance that is not Hamas, and not anyone advocating the destruction of Israel.”

The prime minister’s comments drew a strong response from Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid. “What Netanyahu is offering is more war, more dead hostages, more ‘now cleared for publication’ notices, and tens of billions of taxpayer shekels poured into the delusions of (Itamar) Ben Gvir and (Bezalel) Smotrich,” Lapid said, referring to Israel’s far-right ministers, who have repeatedly pushed for maximalist goals in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.

Families of some of the 50 hostages who are still in Gaza organized several protests on Thursday, pleading with the government to drop the plan.

“Escalating the fighting is a death sentence and immediate disappearance for our loved ones - look us in the eyes when you choose to sacrifice them. This is the time, put a comprehensive deal on the table that will bring them all back together - all 50 hostages,” the Hostages and Missing Families Forum said in a press release.”

The phased plan under consideration would require up to five months, during which approximately a million Palestinians in Gaza City and other areas would once again be forced into evacuation areas in southern Gaza, according to an Israeli official with knowledge of the proposal. The military would establish compounds to house the massive influx of displaced Palestinians.

As part of the plan, Israel and the US would increase the number of aid distribution sites operated by the controversial Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) from the current four up to 16 sites, the official said.

Netanyahu has not yet presented a detailed plan on how Gaza should be governed in the future. But speaking to Fox on Thursday, he gave a hint, saying: “We don’t want to be there as a governing body. We want to hand it over to Arab forces that will govern it properly without threatening us and giving Gazans a good life – that’s not possible with Hamas.”

The operation, which is intended to increase pressure on Hamas and free the remaining Israeli captives, could be paused if the militant group returns to negotiations, the official noted.

The last round of talks, which began with marked optimism, collapsed two weeks ago after the US and Israel pulled their delegations from Qatar, with US envoy Steve Witkoff accusing Hamas of negotiating “in bad faith.” Hamas said it is ready to return to the negotiating table, but only once enough humanitarian aid enters Gaza.

Hamas said Thursday that Netanyahu’s statement ahead of the security cabinet meeting was “a blatant reversal of the negotiation process.”

“Netanyahu’s plans to expand aggression confirm beyond a doubt that he seeks to rid himself of his captives and sacrifice them to serve his personal interests and his extremist ideological agendas,” the group said in a statement.

On Tuesday, US President Donald Trump said it was “pretty much up to Israel” whether to occupy all of Gaza, effectively giving Netanyahu the green light to proceed however he wants.

The Israeli military says it already controls some 75% of Gaza following 22 months of war, which has left much of the territory in ruins and triggered a humanitarian crisis. The expanded operation would see Israel encircle and potentially enter the few remaining areas in Gaza that are outside its direct control in an effort to destroy Hamas. Such a scenario would leave Israel legally responsible for the welfare of Palestinians in Gaza, which is facing a starvation crisis.

But the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) chief, Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, warned in a meeting with Netanyahu on Tuesday evening that a full takeover of Gaza would trap the military within the enclave and put the remaining hostages at risk, sources told CNN Wednesday.

In a rare public acknowledgement of the disagreements between Israel’s military and its political leadership, Zamir said on Thursday, “The culture of debate is an inseparable part of the history of the Jewish people. We will continue to express our position without fear – in a professional, independent, and substantive manner.”

On Thursday, far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich celebrated Israel’s military operations in Gaza as a means to building Jewish settlements in the territory once again. Visiting the re-established settlement of Sa-Nur in the occupied West Bank, Smotrich said Israel “would one day return to every place we were expelled from.” Using the biblical term for the northern West Bank, Smotrich said, “That applies to Gaza, and certainly to Samaria.”

Protests ahead of the vote

Polls have repeatedly shown that the majority of Israelis favor an end to the war in exchange for the release of the remaining 50 hostages in Gaza.

Families of the hostages remaining in Gaza blasted the government’s plan to expand the war.

“Netanyahu is working against the hostages,” said Yehuda Cohen, whose son Nimrod is still held captive in Gaza. “Netanyahu is working for murdering the hostages by going and continuing maneuvering in Gaza, especially in areas where hostages are.”

Cohen and other family members of the hostages sailed towards Gaza’s maritime border on Thursday, calling for the war to end.

As the flotilla set off from the port of Ashkelon in southern Israel, Lior Horev from the Hostages and Missing Families Forum told CNN the sailing was “an SOS call.”

“The decision of the cabinet to prolong the war will be a death sentence to those alive and will make it impossible to return those who have been murdered by Hamas and still are held in Gaza,” Horev said.

A large group of protesters gathered in front of the prime minister’s office in Jerusalem, where the cabinet meeting was taking place.

Family members of some of the hostages wore chunky chains around their ankles and wrists during a protest in Jerusalem.

“When the plans to escalate fighting were revealed, I wrote, I called, I begged, and I came here to say - we’re here, let us in and look us in the eyes and tell us what you’re going to do? Once again they refused to respond,” Lishay Miran-Lavi said at the protest, according to the forum. Miran-Lavi’s husband Omri Miran has been held hostage in Gaza for 22 months.

Another large protest was happening in Tel Aviv as the government was voting on the plan, while smaller gatherings took place across number of Israeli towns and cities.

Meanwhile in Kibbutz Nir Oz, a community in southern Israel that was overrun by Hamas fighters on October 7, 2023, a rebuilding ceremony was paused in protest at Netanyahu’s plan.

“The Cabinet is now meeting to discuss a future that will be eternally condemned. It’s time to say — enough!,” representatives of the kibbutz said in a statement.

Nir Oz was one of the communities hardest hit by the terror attacks, with one in four of its members either killed or kidnapped. Nine are still being held hostage in Gaza.

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