By going public now Benjamin Netanyahu hopes to squeeze Hamas for concessions and please the far right

• Israel to expand military operations in Gaza to establish ‘sustained presence’

The announcement of Israel’s plan to launch imminently a new, expanded offensive in Gaza and to retain the territory it seized is a significant moment, at least in terms of public rhetoric.

Throughout the nearly 19-month war, Israeli troops have carried out large and frequently bloody operations that have covered all except central parts of Gaza, but they have largely restricted their permanent presence to a buffer zone about 1km deep along the devastated territory’s perimeter and two relatively narrow east-west corridors.

Israeli PM says operation will lead to significant displacement of the population ‘for its own protection’

Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, has said a new “intensified” offensive in Gaza will involve Israeli troops holding on to seized territory and significant displacement of the population.

Speaking after officials said Israel’s security cabinet had approved a plan for “conquering” the Gaza Strip and establishing a “sustained presence” there, Netanyahu posted a video on X in which he said Israeli soldiers would not go into Gaza, launch raids and then retreat.

Bureij, Beit Lahiya, Gaza City and Khan Younis hit as Israeli government prepares to expand offensive

Israeli airstrikes have killed at least 40 people across Gaza during the past 24 hours, civil defence officials in the devastated Palestinian territory said, as Israel’s government prepared to order an expansion of its military offensive.

Nine people were killed when a strike hit a home in the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza; another six people died in a separate strike targeting a family home in the northern city of Beit Lahiya; six more died in a strike on a community kitchen in Gaza City, and an overnight attack on the Khan Younis refugee camp killed at least 11 people including three babies up to a year old, the officials said.

Ibtisam Ghalia and her four children are just one of the families living on brink of starvation with no sign of an end to blockade

Every day, Ibtisam Ghalia and her four children count their remaining stocks of food. These are meagre: a kilo or so of beans, a bag of lentils, a little salt, some herbs, spices, and enough flour for half a dozen flatbreads cooked on a griddle over a fire of wood splinters, waste plastic and cardboard.

In the two months since Israel imposed a total blockade on Gaza, stopping food, medicine, fuel and anything else from entering the devastated territory, Ghalia’s “cupboard” has slowly diminished.

Palestinians face starvation and severe malnutrition as Israel’s blockade continues, say aid agencies

Soaring prices of basic foodstuffs, diminishing stocks of medical supplies and sharp cuts to aid distribution threaten newly catastrophic conditions across Gaza, Palestinians and international aid officials in the battered territory are warning.

Humanitarian organisations including the World Food Programme and Unwra, which supplies food and services to more than 2 million Palestinians across Gaza, have now distributed the last of their stocks of flour and other foodstuffs to the dozens of community kitchens in the territory that serve basic meals to those with no other option.