On January 10, 2024, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a statement declaring that Israel did not want to occupy Gaza.
“I want to make a few points absolutely clear,” Netanyahu said in an English-language statement. “Israel has no intention of permanently occupying Gaza or displacing its civilian population.”
That statement, which also included a declaration that Israel’s goal was to “rid Gaza of Hamas terrorists and free our hostages,” was aimed at maintaining international legitimacy for the military operation, which by then was coming under growing criticism from abroad, including from the Biden administration.
Netanyahu sought to reassure the world, and particularly Washington, that Israel harbored no territorial ambitions in Gaza. He understood that if the international community believed that Israel aimed to reoccupy Gaza, support for the war effort would quickly erode.
At the time, Israel was facing mounting international scrutiny over the scale of its campaign and its humanitarian toll.
Allies—especially the United States—were pressing Jerusalem to clarify its post-war intentions for Gaza. Netanyahu’s message was part of a broader diplomatic effort to convince foreign governments and global public opinion that Israel’s actions were in line with international law, aimed at defeating Hamas, and not about reestablishing control over the coastal strip.
Domestically as well, Netanyahu hoped to preserve a near wall-to-wall consensus for the campaign in Gaza by disavowing any territorial aspirations.
The prime minister understood that the war’s support base would shrink significantly if the public believed that the ultimate goal was not just eliminating Hamas and rescuing the hostages, but reversing Ariel Sharon’s 2005 uprooting of Gush Katif and withdrawal from Gaza and reestablishing a permanent military and civilian presence there.
Fast forward 17 months. The security cabinet on Sunday night approved a plan that—if taken to its logical conclusion, meaning Hamas refuses to surrender and release the hostages—could result in precisely that: an Israeli reoccupation of Gaza, as government officials are speaking openly about a “conquest of Gaza.”
Smotrich wants Israel to stop being afraid to use the word occupation
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich (Religious Zionist Party), who has made no secret of his desire to rebuild Jewish settlements in Gaza, said Monday at a conference that Israel should stop being afraid of the word “occupation.”
“We are finally going to occupy the Gaza Strip. We will stop being afraid of the word occupation,” he declared. He added that Israel should not retreat from the areas it has retaken in Gaza, “not even in exchange for the hostages.”
Few things could further polarize an already deeply divided Israeli society more than framing this war as one aimed at reoccupying Gaza. Doing so would resurface old ideological battles over territory and the future of the settlements, reigniting tensions between Left and Right in a way that would be both toxic and destabilizing.
Every soldier who would fall in such a campaign would be portrayed by those opposed to reoccupation not as having died in a just war against a terrorist group bent on Israel’s destruction, but as having been sacrificed for a “messianic” political project to reestablish Jewish sovereignty in Gaza.
Echoes of this are already being heard. For instance, following the security cabinet decision, the Hostages and Missing Families Forum put out a statement saying that by approving the plan, “the government is admitting that it is choosing land over the hostages.”
That two of the loudest voices pushing for reoccupation and resettlement are far-right ministers Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir (Otzma Yehudit) only reinforces that perception.
Internationally, any legitimacy Israel still retains for its war effort would all but collapse—except perhaps in the eyes of the Trump administration. Even within Israel, the prospect of a long-term occupation of Gaza would sap public support, with long-term consequences for national unity and the willingness to fight.
The government is currently issuing fresh emergency call-up orders to the reserves. That effort requires a broad national consensus around the goals of the war. Without it, the high turnout of reservists that the IDF depends on may falter. If the sense grows that the war’s objective is no longer just security, but a controversial political agenda, the consensus that has sustained the war effort for so long could begin to fray.
Netanyahu’s shift—from firmly rejecting occupation in early 2024 to entertaining it in mid-2025—reflects not just coalition considerations, but also evolving military assessments and changes in Washington.
Militarily, the change reflects the belief that Israel’s original strategy of temporary incursions—clearing Hamas infrastructure and withdrawing—failed.
Hamas, it turned out, was able to regroup in previously cleared areas and maintain command structures underground. The current plan, which emphasizes holding territory rather than retreating, is based on the assessment that only sustained presence on the ground can deny Hamas the space it needs to operate.
Politically, the shift is also a response to mounting pressure from Netanyahu’s coalition partners, especially Smotrich and Ben-Gvir, who have advocated re-settling Gaza. While they now frame this as a security imperative, critics, such as Democratic Party head Yair Golan, warn that this is simply ideological expansionism in disguise, repackaged as counterterrorism.
“This is no longer a temporary operation,” Golan wrote on X, “but a move that prepares for a permanent stay in the field, as part of realizing the fantasies of Ben-Gvir and Smotrich.”
Another key factor is the changing international environment. Netanyahu appears to believe that with Donald Trump back in the White House, Israel has a freer hand.
That diplomatic calculus has become more important in the wake of the collapsed ceasefire talks in March 2025, which ended with Hamas demanding a complete Israeli withdrawal and an end to the war, and Israel insisting on Hamas’s disarmament.
With no diplomatic off-ramp in sight, Netanyahu’s government is now positioning the plan to reconquer Gaza as a way to force Hamas’s surrender through overwhelming military pressure.
What began as a war to remove Hamas and rescue the hostages, therefore, may be morphing into something more enduring and politically charged. Netanyahu’s disavowal of permanent occupation in 2024 stands in stark contrast to the 2025 strategy, which now openly speaks of “conquest of the Gaza Strip and retention of territories.”
And that shift is rooted primarily in the fact that, despite 19 months of war, a badly battered and severely degraded Hamas still stands and remains in control in Gaza—and still holds Israeli hostages.
Since neither overwhelming military might nor negotiations have forced Hamas to free the hostages or disarm, the gamble now is that the threat of reoccupying Gaza may do the trick. The danger, however, is that this threat may increase international pressure even as it further splits and divides the nation.
