JERUSALEM – Israel’s security Cabinet approved a plan to expand military operations in Gaza, including the “conquest” of the Palestinian territory and a push for its residents to leave, an official said Monday.
The decision, made overnight, came hours after the military announced it was calling up tens of thousands of reservists to expand its offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
“The plan will include, among other things, the conquest of the Gaza Strip and the holding of the territories, moving the Gaza population south for their protection,” the official said.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “continues to promote” a proposal by US President Donald Trump for the voluntary departure of Gazans to neighboring countries such as Jordan or Egypt, the source added.
The Cabinet — which includes Netanyahu and several Israeli ministers — “unanimously approved” the plan aimed at defeating Gaza’s Palestinian Islamist rulers Hamas and securing the return of hostages held in Gaza.
The official source said the plan included “powerful strikes against Hamas,” without specifying their nature.
Meanwhile, in Tel Aviv, Yemen’s Huthi rebels on Monday blamed Washington for around 10 strikes in and around the capital Sanaa after a missile fired by the Iran-backed group struck the area of Israel’s main airport.
The Huthi-run Saba news agency said the strikes included two targeting Arbaeen street in the capital as well as one on the airport road, blaming them on “American aggression”.
The rebels’ health ministry said 14 people were wounded in the Sawan neighbourhood, according to Saba.
The Huthis, who control swathes of Yemen, have launched missiles and drones targeting Israel and Red Sea shipping throughout the Gaza war, saying they act in solidarity with Palestinians.
The missile fired from Yemen by the Huthis landed near the main terminal of Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport on Sunday, wounding six people.
The military confirmed that the attack, which gouged a large crater in the perimeter of the airport, had struck despite “several attempts… to intercept the missile.”
In a video published on Telegram, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel had in the past “acted against” the Iran-backed rebels and “will act in the future.”
“It will not happen in one bang, but there will be many bangs,” he added, without elaborating.
Later on X, Netanyahu said Israel would also respond to Iran at “a time and place of our choosing.”
Several international airlines suspended flights to Israel following the attack, and hours later the Huthis promised more such strikes and warned airlines to cancel their flights to Israeli airports.
A police video showed officers standing on the edge of a deep hole in the ground with a control tower visible behind them. No damage was reported to airport infrastructure.
An AFP photographer said the missile hit near the parking lots of Terminal 3, the airport’s largest.
“You can see the area just behind us: a crater was formed here, several dozen meters wide and several dozen meters deep,” central Israel’s police chief, Yair Hezroni, said in the video.
“This is the first time” that a missile has directly struck inside the airport perimeter, an Israeli military spokesperson told AFP.
The Huthis claimed responsibility for the attack, saying their forces “carried out a military operation targeting Ben Gurion airport” with a “hypersonic ballistic missile”.
In a later statement, the group’s military spokesperson Yayha Saree said they would target Israeli airports, “particularly the one in Lod, called Ben Gurion”, near Tel Aviv. He called on airlines to cancel flights to Israeli airports.
Israel’s Magen David Adom emergency service said it had treated at least six people with light to moderate injuries.
An AFP journalist inside the airport during the attack said he heard a “loud bang” at around 9:35 am (0635 GMT), adding that the “reverberation was very strong”.
“Security staff immediately asked hundreds of passengers to take shelter, some in bunkers,” the AFP journalist said.
One passenger said the attack, which came shortly after air raid sirens sounded across parts of Israel, caused “panic”.
“It is crazy to say but since Oct. 7 we are used to this,” said the 50-year-old, who did not want to be named, referring to the 2023 Hamas attack on Israel that sparked the Gaza war.
Flights resumed after being halted briefly, with the aviation authority saying Ben Gurion was now “open and operational”.
On Sunday, army chief Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir said the military was calling up “tens of thousands” of reservists to expand its war in Gaza.
The Cabinet also approved the “possibility of humanitarian distribution” in Gaza, under full Israeli blockade since March 2.
It said there was “currently enough food” in the territory, although humanitarian organizations and UN agencies have warned of the blockade’s dire consequences for Gaza’s 2.4 million people.
The Cabinet “approved by a large majority the possibility of a humanitarian distribution, if necessary, to prevent Hamas from taking control of the supplies and to destroy its governance capabilities”, the official said.
Israel has intensified aerial bombardments and expanded ground operations in the Gaza Strip since resuming its offensive in the Palestinian territory on March 18.
Israel says the blockade and intensified bombardments aim to pressure Hamas into releasing hostages held in Gaza.
Militants in the territory still hold 58 hostages seized in Hamas’s Oct. 2023 attack on Israel.
The Hamas attack resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.
Israel’s retaliatory military offensive has killed at least 52,535 people in Gaza, the majority of them civilians, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.