Hamas has accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of tearing up the October 2025 ceasefire, after he instructed the military to expand its territorial control inside Gaza.
Mr Netanyahu ordered the army to take over additional areas of the enclave, a move Hamas says breaks the terms of the fragile truce that came into force in October.
Speaking about Israel’s footprint in Gaza, Mr Netanyahu said the military had held 50% of the Palestinian territory under the ceasefire arrangements before pushing its control to 60%. “My directive is to move to… 70%,” he said.
“We’re squeezing them from all (sides). We’ll deal with what’s left afterwards,” he added.
Hamas political bureau member Bassem Naim said the decision amounted to a “blatant violation of all agreements, as is their usual practice”, and said it would happen “while the killing and starvation continue”.
The Al-Mawasi area where an Israeli strike this week targeted a food warehouse and an open area
Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem also criticised what he called the “complete silence” of US President Donald Trump’s Board of Peace and its high representative for Gaza, Nickolay Mladenov.
“Failing to condemn Israel’s expansionist policies and forced displacement plans raises serious questions about the extent of the sponsoring parties’ commitment to obliging Israel to adhere to its obligations” under the ceasefire deal,” Mr Qassem said in a separate statement.
The first phase of the truce that began in October 2025 saw the last hostages seized in Hamas’s 7 October 2023 attacks on Israel — the assault that triggered the war in Gaza — freed in exchange for Palestinians detained by Israel.
But the handover to a second phase has been stuck for months, despite plans that were meant to include Hamas’s disarmament and a gradual pullback by the Israeli army.
The ceasefire terms required Israeli forces to withdraw behind a so-called “yellow line”, a boundary separating territory under Hamas control from areas held by the Israeli military.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has blamed Hamas on multiple occasions of violating the 10 October ceasefire, with Hamas blaming Israel’s Defence Forces in turn
On 15 May, Mr Netanyahu said Israeli forces had already widened their hold over Gaza.
“There were those who said: get out, get out. We did not get out. Today we control… how much? 60%. Tomorrow we shall see,” he said at the time.
Gaza has continued to see daily violence, with both the Israeli military and Hamas trading accusations of breaches of the truce that has been in place since 10 October.
More children will suffer due to new plan, says UN
The UN has warned that Israel’s new plan to take control of 70% of Gaza would intensify hardship for children already struggling under severe overcrowding.
UNICEF said the move would worsen a health crisis for children in the battered territory, where there are acute shortages of food, water and hygiene.
Israel controls the flow of aid into the enclave and all entry points to Gaza, which has been under an Israeli blockade since 2007.
Even before Hamas’s 7 October 2023 attacks inside Israel set off the war in Gaza, the territory was already among the most densely populated places in the region.
Now, “people have been crammed into around 40% of the space,” UNICEF spokesman Salim Oweis told reporters in Geneva, speaking from Gaza.
Residents were left “sheltering among broken buildings, rubble and mounting solid waste”, he said, adding “there is no accessible space left to clear” the waste.
“The effects of this are now widely apparent: children with respiratory infections, acute watery diarrhoea, and more than half of all households reporting skin diseases.”
