Israel’s security cabinet has approved Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s proposal to occupy Gaza City, located in the north of the Palestinian enclave, according to news reports.

The Israeli Prime Minister’s Office has yet to publicly confirm the plan, which is a major escalation in the war-torn Palestinian territory and was first reported by the news site Axios on Friday.

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Axios reporter Barak Ravid quoted the prime minister’s office as saying: “The Political-Security Cabinet approved the Prime Minister’s proposal to defeat Hamas. The [Israeli military] will prepare to take over Gaza City while providing humanitarian aid to the civilian population outside the combat zones”.

Ravid, citing an unnamed senior Israeli official, continued that Israel’s goal is to “evacuate all Palestinian civilians from Gaza City to the central camps and other areas by October 7”.

“A siege will be imposed on the Hamas militants who remain in Gaza City, and at the same time, a ground offensive will be carried out in Gaza City,” Ravid wrote on X.

Shihab Rattansi, Al Jazeera’s correspondent in Washington, DC, said Israel’s move to occupy Gaza has been “telegraphed for several days now”.

“Donald Trump has all but green lit whatever Benjamin Netanyahu wants to do. He said it would be up to the Israelis,” he said

On Thursday, Netanyahu said Israel would “take control of all Gaza” in a television interview with American outlet Fox News.

Netanyahu also said in the interview that Israel doesn’t want to be “a governing body” in Gaza and would hand over responsibility to an unspecified third party.

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“We don’t want to keep it. We want to have a security perimeter. We don’t want to govern it,” he said.

This followed reports in Israeli media earlier this week that the Israeli leader would imminently announce plans to fully occupy the entirety of the Gaza Strip.

“The decision has been made [to occupy Gaza],” Israel’s Channel 12 news outlet reported on Monday, quoting an unnamed senior official in Netanyahu’s office.

This is a breaking news story. More information to follow soon.