Israel-Gaza War updates: Israel's security cabinet approves plan to take over Gaza City — as it happened

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Here's a summary of the day's events:

• Israel’s security cabinet has approved a plan to take over Gaza City in a major escalation of the country's war in Gaza, according to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office.
• It comes after he told Fox News that Israel intends to take full control of Gaza and hand it over to Arab forces to govern.
• Hamas has called the proposal "a blatant coup" against the negotiation process.
• Israel's opposition leader Yair Lapid has slammed the cabinet's approval and said "this is exactly what Hamas wanted".
• Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong has urged Israel to "not go down this path".
• Hundreds of protesters in Jerusalem have blocked the streets, demanding an end to the war and the return of hostages.

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For more information, our Middle East correspondent Allyson Horn has written an explainer about Israel's plan to occupy Gaza City.

In the same interview with ABC News Channel, Omar Dajani questioned whether an Israeli "reoccupation" of Gaza City can deliver better outcomes than diplomacy.

"I think the question people are asking is whether an Israeli reoccupation of the Gaza Strip can succeed in releasing hostages to a greater extent than negotiations and a deal would, whether it would provide humanitarian relief, ... and then also whether it can lead toward the broader political horizon that's so crucial for bringing stabilisation and the security that it can bring both to Palestinians and to their Israeli neighbours."

Dajani labelled Israel's plans a "reoccupation" because "Israeli forces have been operating militarily there since they broke the ceasefire in March".

Palestinian-American professor Omar Dajani says a total elimination of Hamas is unrealistic, even if Israel occupies Gaza City.

"Internationally, what we have seen is that Arab states are calling upon Hamas to disarm and many Palestinians have lost confidence that it fully represents their interests," he told ABC News Channel. 

"But the fact of the matter is that it's not going to disappear from the scene politically, even if Israel reoccupies because it represents an important part of the Palestinian national consensus, and the commitment to resistance."

Instead, Dajani says Hamas must be "engaged and defamed", adding that efforts to eliminate Hamas entirely would be "ill-fated".

Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid has slammed the cabinet's approval of a plan to take over Gaza City.

In a statement posted to X, he said the decision is "a disaster that will lead to many more disasters".

"In complete contradiction to the opinion of the military and security ranks, without considering the erosion and exhaustion of the fighting forces, [Itamar] Ben-Gvir and [Bezalel] Smotrich dragged [Benjamin] Netanyahu into a move that will take months, lead to the death of the hostages, the killing of many soldiers, cost tens of billions to the Israeli taxpayer, and lead to a political collapse," a translation by Google Translate reads.

"This is exactly what Hamas wanted: for Israel to be trapped in the field without a goal, without defining the picture of the day after, in a useless occupation that no one understands where it is leading."

Israel has repeatedly bombarded Gaza City and carried out numerous raids there, only to return to neighbourhoods as militants regrouped.

A major ground operation there could displace thousands of people and further disrupt efforts to deliver food to the territory.

It's unclear how many people reside in the city, which was Gaza's largest before the war.

Hundreds of thousands fled Gaza City under evacuation orders in the opening weeks of the war but many returned during a ceasefire at the start of this year.

"There is nothing left to occupy," said Maysaa al-Heila, who is living in a displacement camp.

'There is no Gaza left."

Reporting by AP

Gaza City is really considered the heart of Gaza, so a military takeover will be highly significant, both symbolically and logistically.

I've been inside Gaza City before the war, while reporting from the Middle East.

It's usually a really vibrant area of Gaza that's densely populated, with lots of shops, cafes and restaurants, but it's been completely transformed by the war.

The population there has become even more condensed, with estimates of hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians also packed into the area.

The question now is, where will those Palestinians go as Israeli troops advance?

Gaza City is made up of many small streets and alleyways, which means Israeli troops are likely to be engaged in guerrilla-style warfare fighting against Hamas gunmen there.

In other areas of Gaza, Israel has used air strikes to destroy large swathes of buildings and infrastructure and diminish Hamas's capabilities.

If this were to happen inside Gaza City, many Palestinians would see this as the destruction of the heart of Gaza.

This major escalation by Israel is likely to exacerbate social tensions in Australia, Executive Council of Australian Jewry Alex Ryvchin warns.

"We have seen for nearly two years now how events in the Middle East serve to inflame tensions and to drive on particularly the most extreme elements of the anti-Israel movement in this country," he told ABC News Channel.

"We have seen the targeting of Jewish institutions, of galleries, of restaurants, of Jewish families and individuals."

We're bringing you more information on Israel's agreed occupation of Gaza City. 

According to Netanyahu's office, the IDF will take over the city while "providing humanitarian aid to the civilian population outside the combat zones".

It also outlined its five steps towards ending the war, including:

1. Disarmament of Hamas

2. Return of all hostages - both living and dead

3. Demilitarisation of the Gaza Strip

4. Israeli security control over the Gaza Strip

5. The existence of an alternative civilian government that is not Hamas or the Palestinian Authority

"An absolute majority of Cabinet ministers believed that the alternative plan presented to the Cabinet would not achieve the defeat of Hamas or the return of the abductees," the statement adds.

Foreign Minister Penny Wong has urged the Israeli government to abandon plans to occupy Gaza City and says doing so will be a violation of international law.

“Australia calls on Israel to not go down this path, which will only worsen the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza,” she said in a statement.

"Permanent forced displacement is a violation of international law.

"With international partners, Australia maintains our call for a ceasefire, the return of hostages and aid to flow unimpeded.

"A two-state solution is the only pathway to secure an enduring peace – a Palestinian state and the State of Israel, living side-by-side in peace and security within internationally-recognised borders."

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office says Israel’s security cabinet has approved a plan to take over Gaza City.

News of Benjamin Netanyahu's plans to take complete control of Gaza has travelled quickly throughout the strip. But for many Gazans, the announcement was not a surprise.

"The announcement of an expanded military operation to fully occupy and control the entire Gaza Strip is, unfortunately, expected from the Israeli army," Dr Ahmed Al Sufi, the mayor of Rafah in Gaza's south, told the ABC in a voice message.

"In reality, the Israeli military already controls more than 85 per cent of Gaza’s territory. It controls all the crossings, the sea, and essentially everything.

"People are now trapped in a narrow coastal strip in western Gaza, western Khan Younis, and the western parts of the central region — specifically in the Al-Mawasi area, which lacks even the most basic necessities of life.

"If the army enters these remaining areas, I honestly don’t know where people can go. There will be nowhere left. The situation would become absolutely catastrophic."

He called on the world to "act immediately to stop this insane war that has now dragged on for more than 21 months".

"It has killed thousands, displaced millions, and continues to kill — whether by bombs, by disease, or by starvation," he said.

"This war must end. The world must find a real solution for the Palestinian people."

Reporting by Nicole Johnston

Here's some more of what MSF's Jennifer Tierney has had to say, specifically about reports of violence at aid sites.

She said staff and patients had recounted scenes of "horror" at the Israel-US-backed sites, which have been operating since late May.

"People are put into situations where the security creates crush risks, where it means that people are getting shot while they're trying to collect aid," she told ABC News channel.

"These are people who already have malnutrition, who already have suffered through wounds and the Israeli government is forcing them into these small areas and these insecure situations.

"As a result we're seeing hundreds, thousands, of patients who are coming to our primary health clinics with injuries as a result of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation set-up."

Israel has said it's fired warning shots at some of these aid distribution sites but denies allegations of deliberately targeting civilians.

Tierney refutes that view as "directly and deliberately" denying "reality".

"The idea that Israel could then take over the Gaza Strip and support it in any way other than just to continue their genocidal campaign is a farce," she adds, of Netanyahu's plan.

"I cannot, cannot, be more urgent in my call for the international community to stop this genocide."

The International Court of Justice has not yet made a finding of genocide and the allegation is strenuously denied by Israel.

International law states it is illegal for a military occupier to transfer its civilians into the occupied territory — meaning it would be widely seen as illegal for Israel to allow its citizens to build settlements and live inside Gaza.

But this practice is already well-established in the other part of the Occupied Palestinian Territory — the West Bank — where more than 500,000 settlers live.

Israel says its West Bank settlements are legal and cite security justifications for their presence there.

And human rights groups fear an Israeli takeover of the whole of Gaza will open the door for Israeli resettlement there.

It’s been 20 years since Israelis last lived inside Gaza.

At the time, about 8,000 settlers lived in 21 settlements among the Palestinian population of about 1.4 million.

The settlers were removed from the strip by the Israeli Government in 2005 after political leaders decided to "disengage" from Gaza.

But multiple senior politicians in the current Israeli government have repeatedly called for the resettlement of Gaza, including the country's National Security Minister.

Federal Environment Minister Murray Watt says the government is "strongly opposed" to Israel’s plan to for a full occupation of Gaza.

Israel's cabinet has been meeting to discuss Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's plan to launch a full military occupation of the war-torn territory.

Murray Watt says the move would not be in the interests of peace.

“We strongly oppose the forced occupation of Gaza. We strongly oppose the suggestion that the Palestinian people should be displaced,” he said at a press conference in Sydney.

“We're calling on the parties to reach an immediate ceasefire and we want to see the impediments to aid into Gaza removed, as well as the hostages being released.”

Reporting by Sean Tarek Goodwin

Jennifer Tierney is the executive director of Médecins sans frontières in Australia.

She says MSF clinics in Gaza are treating hundreds of malnourished Palestinians.

"In our clinics we are treating hundreds of malnourished women and children, pregnant women in particular I like to focus on," she tells ABC News Channel.

"When you starve women who are pregnant and breastfeeding, they are unable to feed their children.

"These have incredibly long-term effects for children. So we're not just seeing starvation.

"We're seeing children who are being deprived of the development that they need, we're seeing young children who should be the size of a seven-year-old who are the size of a five-year-old at this point.

"We're seeing children who are not getting the nutrients they need to support their development mentally, either.

"It's a tragedy that's going to carry on for decades to come."

Russia's deputy UN Ambassador Dmitry Polyanskiy has been one of the first international diplomats to condemn the Israeli plan for a takeover.

"We think that this is a very bad step in an absolutely wrong direction and we condemn this kind of actions," he said in comments to reporters.

In Jerusalem, hundreds blocked the streets outside the Prime Minister's Offices in the heart of the city to protest against the expansion of the war in Gaza.

The meeting started 6pm local time and it's now approaching 2am in Jerusalem.

That means Israeli officials have been discussing Netanyahu's plan for almost 8 hours now.

Israel’s government believes the remaining 50-odd Israeli hostages, which includes 20 still alive, are being held in the areas around Gaza City, Al-Mawasi and Deir al-Balah — where Israeli forces do not yet control.

It’s likely this is one of the reasons Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will use when arguing why his military needs to take control of those areas and in turn, occupy the whole of the strip.

But the appetite for expanding this war amongst the Israeli public is already very low.

Multiple polling across Israel has repeatedly shown the majority of Israelis want this war to end and a ceasefire and hostage release deal to be reached.

And contrary to the views of the government, the vast majority of hostage families believe pushing into the area currently not occupied by Israel will jeopardise the safety of the captives.

They cite an example from one year ago where six Israeli hostages were killed by Hamas as the IDF advanced through the southern Gazan city of Rafah.

Hostage families say they fear their loved one will also be killed — either by Hamas or by the military — if the IDF moves into Gaza City and its surrounds.

They’ve urged the government to reach a hostage-release and ceasefire deal instead.

Francesca Albanese, the UN's Special Rapporteur for the Occupied Palestinian Territories, has been speaking to BBC about the proposal.

She says it's as "shocking as the war that has preceded it".

"It's hard to imagine how much harm he [Netanyahu] can do because they [Gazans] are beyond the brink of collapse," Albanese tells the BBC.

"We have seen the complete failure of humanitarian protection, which demands that civilians are spared from the consequences of war."