A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, made his case to the international press last night about why Israel is moving to take control of the rest of the Gaza Strip.
LEILA FADEL, HOST:
And he directly pushed back against mounting criticism both at home and internationally over this military escalation.
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PRIME MINISTER BENJAMIN NETANYAHU: This is the best way to end the war and the best way to end it speedily.
MARTÍNEZ: With us is NPR's Emily Feng in Tel Aviv following all of this. So, Emily, how did Netanyahu describe Israel's expansion of the war in Gaza?
EMILY FENG, BYLINE: So he detailed some already announced plans to take over Gaza City, which is in the north of Gaza, and refugee camps in central Gaza. And he said civilians would be moved from these places to what he called designated safe zones. But it's really unclear what that means, given this would involve hundreds of thousands of civilians being evacuated, and nearly all of Gaza is basically a combat zone or it is a military zone. Netanyahu said Israel had no choice but to finish the job of defeating Hamas. But hundreds of former senior defense officials said last week in an open letter Israel had already achieved all of its military objectives in Gaza. Netanyahu then spent a good part of the last half of the press conference calling reports of mass starvation in Gaza part of a, quote, "global campaign of lies," even though NPR and many other news outlets and aid organizations through firsthand reporting have documented systemic hunger due to Israel's restrictions on letting in more aid to Gaza.
And yesterday, I went down to Israel's border with Gaza, close enough that I could see the destroyed northern edge of the strip - you know, concrete ruins of houses completely empty of people. And you could see the smoke and hear the bombs from ongoing Israeli bombing of this enclave. And that bombing later escalated throughout the day, including a targeted airstrike last night that killed Anas al-Sharif, Gaza's most prominent television journalist, and also a number of his Al Jazeera colleagues.
MARTÍNEZ: You mentioned how Netanyahu says that Israel has no choice but to fight now. Do Israelis also say this? Do they support this?
FENG: They are extremely split. A good portion of society, including, as I mentioned, many former military officials, want the war to end, and there are growing anti-war protests and calls this week for a mass strike. Yesterday, I also followed a group of several hundred mothers and at least one former chief of staff to the military who also drove down to the border of Gaza in protest of the war. And one of the demonstrators was Agamit Gelb. She is the mother of a soldier currently fighting for the Israeli army, and her second son, she says, is about to be drafted in a week.
AGAMIT GELB: It only kills more and more soldiers there. They're very, very tired of this war. We see the impact of the war on our sons already.
FENG: People like her worry their sons are dying for no real military gains in Gaza. And Gelb's concern really gets to the political tension that's emerging over the aims of this war.
MARTÍNEZ: In what way?
FENG: So Netanyahu has maintained the purpose of Israel's war in Gaza is to destroy Hamas and free hostages - about 20 are still believed to be alive there - goals that he reiterated on a call with President Trump yesterday. But Netanyahu is politically reliant on these two far-right ministers who have far bigger plans for Gaza. They have explicitly and repeatedly said Gaza should be destroyed, that Palestinians living there removed to another country and Jewish people should be allowed to move in again. This has become a central point of concern among soldiers I've been interviewing over the last week who are increasing - really refusing to serve in the military because they want to get the hostages out, but they see what these two ministers proposing as a religious war that they tell me they want no part of.
MARTÍNEZ: That's NPR's Emily Feng in Tel Aviv. Emily, thank you.
FENG: Thanks, A. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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