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ceasefire
‘A War Criminal Admitting to His Crimes’: Netanyahu Says He Ordered Military to Seize 70% of Gaza
The head of a pro-Israel lobbying group called it "a blatant violation of the ceasefire and clear undermining of any plan for post-conflict Gaza."
May 28, 2026
As Israel expands its control over the Gaza Strip in violation of last year's ceasefire agreement, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday that he had ordered the military to take over even more territory.
During a conference at the Ein Prat pre-military academy in an illegal Israeli settlement in the occupied West Bank, the prime minister acknowledged that Israel has gradually expanded its control over Gaza since the ceasefire agreement was implemented in October.
"We are now in 60% of the Gaza Strip, more or less. We were at 50%; now we’ve moved to 60%," he told the crowd.
"My directive," he continued, "is to move to—"
Members of the audience then interrupted with shouts of "100! 100!"
"Wait, let's go in order," Netanyahu responded. "First 70%. Let's start with that."
The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor has said Israel's expansion of control in Gaza and construction of fortified military sites “directly contradicts the requirements of the second phase of the ceasefire agreement" and is creating conditions of "de facto annexation."
That agreement required Israeli forces to withdraw behind a so-called "yellow line" that left the military occupying about 53% of the country. Even that occupation was meant to be temporary, with later stages of the agreement involving a full pullout of Israeli troops as Hamas and other militant groups in the strip disarm.
But in recent months, the opposite has happened. The Israel Defense Forces have gradually pushed the yellow line deeper into Palestinian territory to the point where it encompasses more than 60% of the coastal strip, leaving Palestinians near the yellow line to wake up and learn they are in an "open-fire zone" where they can be shot on sight.
According to data from the United Nations Human Rights Office shared with Reuters on Wednesday, 152 Palestinians—comprising 102 men, 15 women, and 35 children—had been killed near the boundary during the ceasefire period up to February 5, which the office's head said raises "serious concerns that the Israeli army is shooting at and killing presumed civilians simply on the basis of their proximity to the so-called yellow line."
Netanyahu's remark follows Israel's orders on Wednesday for more than 200,000 residents of southern Lebanon to forcibly evacuate north of the Zahrani River despite an ongoing ceasefire that began last month.
Israel has systematically razed villages across southern Lebanon since the beginning of March, gradually pushing northward to the point where it now effectively controls about a fifth of the country's territory.
Those ordered to flee their homes on Wednesday joined more than 1 million Lebanese already forcibly displaced by Israel's forced expulsion orders and bombardments. More than 3,200 Lebanese have been killed, including hundreds of women and children.
Israel's far-right settler movement—represented in the Netanyahu government by figures like Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich—speaks openly about ethnically cleansing Gaza and Lebanon of their residents to make way for permanent Israeli settlers, in a similar fashion to the intensifying annexation of the West Bank.
On Wednesday, Defense Minister Israel Katz said that Israel was pushing for the mass “voluntary migration” of Palestinians from Gaza and said the government would implement a plan for it “at the right time and in the right manner."
Human rights groups have said that the creation of unlivable conditions in Gaza to push its residents to leave would amount to the war crime of forced transfer.
Itay Epshtain, an Israeli expert in international law and the law of armed conflict, said Katz had "publicly committed himself to the mass deportation of Palestinians from Gaza" and that "members of Israel’s government openly endorsed conduct in gross and systemic breach of peremptory norms of international law."
Netanyahu, meanwhile, has previously expressed sympathy for the idea of "Greater Israel," which involves the expansion of the nation's borders to conquer all or part of current-day Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, Egypt, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia in accordance with Biblical descriptions.
The International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant for Netanyahu for war crimes and crimes against humanity during Israel's genocidal military campaign in Gaza, and is reportedly taking actions against Smotrich and Ben-Gvir as well.
Dylan Williams, the vice president for government affairs at the Center for International Policy, said that Netanyahu's pledge on Thursday to further expand Israel's territorial control in Gaza was "a war criminal admitting to his crimes."
Ilan Goldberg, the senior vice president of the pro-Israel lobbying group JStreet, said plans to expand were "a blatant violation of the ceasefire and clear undermining of any plan for post-conflict Gaza."
"Yes, Hamas needs to disarm," he said. "But Israel cannot be launching plans to retake all of Gaza."
Owen Jones, a British journalist, lamented the lack of coverage of the slow-motion ethnic cleansing in the Western press.
"Israel doesn't try to hide its crimes. It broadcasts them to the world, knowing it has impunity," he said on Thursday. "Netanyahu boasts of annexing Gaza. Yesterday, his defense minister said the plan was to remove Gaza's population. No front page headlines. No Western denunciations."
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Lebanese Cities Face ‘Direct Threat of Israeli Occupation’ as IDF Orders 200,000 People to Evacuate
"Our villages have been systematically razed over these past months, and now the cities themselves are in the crosshairs," said one Lebanese journalist.
May 27, 2026
The Israel Defense Forces' intensified its bombardment of the southern Lebanese city of Tyre on Wednesday just two hours after ordering the evacuation of 200,000 area residents, further violating a US-brokered ceasefire and stoking fears of Israeli occupation and even colonization.
The IDF ordered the entire city of Tyre and surrounding areas, including Palestinian refugee camps, to immediately flee north of the Zahrani River. Israeli bombing of Tyre has caused considerable damage to the UNESCO World Heritage site and one of the world's oldest continuously inhabited cities.
"Our villages have been systematically razed over these past months, and now the cities themselves are in the crosshairs," Lebanese journalist Ali Hashem said on X.
IDF Arabic language spokesperson Avichay Adraee said on X Wednesday that "in light of the terrorist Hezbollah party's violation of the ceasefire agreement and targeting of Israeli territory, the Israel Defense Forces are compelled to act forcefully against it."
While Hezbollah has launched drones, rockets, and attacks against Israeli troops, the militant resistance group says they are responses to Israeli violations of the April 16 ceasefire. IDF attacks have killed more than 700 Lebanese, including many women and children, since the truce took effect, despite US President Donald Trump telling Israel that such strikes are "PROHIBITED."
"The Israel Defense Forces do not intend to harm you," Adraee's message continued. "Your presence near Hezbollah elements, their facilities, or their combat means puts your lives at risk. Any building used by Hezbollah for military purposes may be subject to targeting."
"To ensure your safety, evacuate your homes immediately and move north beyond the Zahrani River," the order warns. "Be advised—any movement south of the Zahrani River may put your lives at risk."
Adraee's warning came as Lebanese communities reeled under intensified airstrikes that have killed or wounded scores of people across southern Lebanon since Tuesday.
Since Israel renewed its attacks on Lebanon in March at the start of the US-Israeli war on Iran, more than 3,200 Lebanese have been killed—including hundreds of women and children—nearly 10,000 more have been wounded, and over 1 million people have been forcibly displaced, according to officials. As in Gaza, Israeli forces have been accused of deliberately targeting Lebanon's healthcare infrastructure, including first responders, as well as journalists.
Israeli forces also killed and wounded more than 20,000 Lebanese during 2023-25 attacks carried out during the war on Gaza after Hezbollah launched rockets and drones at Israel in solidarity with the Palestinian resistance.
Israel has been accused of ethnic cleansing as its forces raze entire villages in southern Lebanon, drawing comparisons to Israel's genocidal war on Gaza, which has left more than 250,000 Palestinians dead, maimed, or missing, and around 2 million people forcibly displaced, starved, or sickened.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said in March that Lebanese people displaced north of the Litani River would not be allowed to return to their homes—many of which have been looted by IDF troops—until people living in northern Israel are secure from Hezbollah rocket and drone threats.
The IDF has also extended its so-called "Yellow Line" in Lebanon, which it designated largely along the Litani River, in an effort to counter Hezbollah drone attacks that have killed or wounded at least scores of Israeli invaders.
Some observers fear another prolonged Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon, as happened for 18 years late last century. IDF troops briefly occupied the capital city of Beirut in 1982 and did not withdraw from southern Lebanon until 2000.
Others fear even worse, including the possible Israeli colonization of parts of Lebanon in pursuit of realizing a “Greater Israel” stretching from the Nile River in Egypt to the Euphrates in Iraq, land many religious Jews believe was promised to them by their deity figure.
Earlier this month, Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir revealed the existence of a "settlement plan" for southern Lebanon. This, after Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich asserted that "the Litani must be our new border."
Such Israeli expansion would likely include the permanent ethnic cleansing of hundreds of thousands of Lebanese, similar to the 1947-49 forced expulsion of Palestinians during the Nakba, or "catastrophe," a period of terrorist attacks, massacres, and death marches perpetrated by Jewish militias during the establishment of the modern state of Israel.
The International Criminal Court is believed to be seeking the arrest of Ben-Gvir and Smotrich in connection with the ethnic cleansing and settler colonization of the illegally occupied West Bank. The Hague-based tribunal has already issued warrants for the arrest of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.
While negotiators from the United States, Iran, and mediating nations seek to achieve a lasting halt to hostilities in the Middle East, Israeli leaders have been actively working against peace. Addressing the prospect of a peace agreement, Ben-Gvir vowed during a Tuesday press briefing that "we will not allow this to happen."
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Ben-Gvir Says Israel ‘Will Not Allow’ Trump to Make a Peace Deal With Iran as IDF Kills Dozens in Lebanon
An ex-Israeli diplomat said Israel was "moving to bury not only the supposed ceasefire in Lebanon but also talks on Iran" because its policy "is an endless and wide regional war."
May 27, 2026
As Israel launched a new bombardment of Lebanon on Tuesday, its far-right security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, suggested that it was trying to derail ongoing peace negotiations between US President Donald Trump and Iran.
During a press briefing on Tuesday, the influential settler politician railed against the possibility of a deal to end the war as it neared the three-month mark and said the whole Israeli Cabinet was in agreement.
"I know that Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu and all of us members of the Cabinet... as the government of Israel, cannot allow this to happen," Ben-Gvir said in Hebrew. "This is an agreement that can harm the state of Israel, and we will not allow this to happen."
Ben-Gvir's remarks came as Trump engaged in what he has suggested was another promising round of ceasefire talks with the Iranians—talks that did not include Israel.
Despite its foreign ministry condemning recent US attacks as signs of "bad faith" and "definitive violations" of the ceasefire on Tuesday, Iran has not yet pulled away from the table.
Citing Iranian state TV, Reuters reported on Wednesday that Tehran has received an unofficial framework from the US that would restore commercial shipping through the Strait of Hormuz to pre-war levels for a month in exchange for the US withdrawing troops from Iran's vicinity and lifting its naval blockade. The US has disputed this account.
Trump has previously attempted to force Iran to accept major concessions on its nuclear program upfront, but nuclear-related talks appear to have been shifted to future negotiations.
While it has not been at the center of the latest round of negotiations, Iran still considers ending Israel’s assault on Lebanon to be an essential part of a durable peace.
As it has during previous peace negotiations between Iran and the US, Israel launched another major bombardment against Lebanon on Tuesday, violating the 45-day ceasefire that went into effect last month.
Israeli forces conducted more than 120 airstrikes across southern Lebanon and the eastern Bekaa Valley against what they said were Hezbollah targets, according to The Guardian, as Netanyahu said Israel would "intensify" its military campaign.
According to Lebanon's health ministry, 31 people were killed, and 40 were wounded. In the southern town of Burj al-Shamali, 14 people were killed, including two children and three women, the ministry said.
Since Israel's offensive began in early March, more than 3,200 people have been killed and over 9,700 wounded, according to the ministry. More than 600 people have been killed since the April truce began.
Sources also told Reuters that Israel had expanded its occupation of southern Lebanon, past its so-called "security zone." Israeli forces ordered the residents of dozens of Lebanese villages not to return to their homes in the occupation zone, which Israel is trying to expand to between 5 and 10 kilometers inside Lebanon.
In what Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz has described as a renewal of its "Gaza model," Israel had demolished or damaged more than 40,000 homes in southern Lebanon before last month's truce went into effect, though destruction has continued since then. More than 1 million people in Lebanon have been displaced as a result of forced evacuation orders and bombardments by Israel.
Hezbollah has responded on Tuesday with drone attacks on Israel, which it had already been launching for weeks in response to what it said were persistent ceasefire violations.
Another far-right Israeli Cabinet member, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, said Israel should respond to each drone by destroying 10 buildings in Beirut. If there are no buildings left in Beirut, he said, Israel should expand the demolitions to other areas such as Tyre, Sidon, and the Bekaa Valley.
Ben-Gvir, meanwhile, said on Tuesday that Israel should "cut off the electricity in Lebanon," "occupy" the area up to the Zahrani River, and "return to a massive war."
The timing of Israel's renewed assault on Lebanon has been met with accusations that it is attempting to sabotage ceasefire talks between the US and Iran.
Shaiel Ben-Ephraim, a former diplomat with the Israeli Foreign Ministry who has since become a prominent critic of the country, said that by moving deeper into Lebanon, Israel was "moving to bury not only the supposed ceasefire in Lebanon but also talks on Iran" because its policy "is an endless and wide regional war."
Responding to Ben-Gvir's remarks, he said, "Israel forced the US into war and won’t let us end it."
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