Portside

The Israeli military has put parts of Gaza City and Khan Younis under new enforced displacement orders amid fears that the country’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is preparing to order the full occupation of the Palestinian territory later this week.

Israel’s security cabinet is expected to meet on Thursday evening and sign off on plans for an expanded operation despite reported serious misgivings from senior military officers.

The order for Gaza – euphemistically described by the Israel Defense Forces as an “evacuation” – is the latest in dozens of such announcements that have displaced the vast majority of Gaza’s population, many on multiple occasions.

The orders came as the US president, Donald Trump, said any decision over expanded Israeli control in Gaza was up to Israel. “As far as the rest of it, I really can’t say. That’s going to be pretty much up to Israel,” he told reporters on Tuesday.

Many people had returned to Gaza City only relatively recently after long periods of displacement to find their homes war-damaged and looted, with even doors and windows stolen in some cases.

As Gaza’s health ministry reported that five more people had died from starvation in the coastal strip, which has been plunged into a devastating hunger crisis owing to Israel’s complete block on aid entering earlier this year, Jordan reported an aid convoy of 30 trucks that had left for Gaza had been attacked by militant Jewish settlers on entering Israel.

After the attack, the second in days, Jordan accused Israel of failing to act to prevent repeated assaults. “This requires a serious Israeli intervention and no leniency in dealing with those who obstruct these convoys,” said Jordan’s government spokesperson Mohammad al-Momani.

Amid continuing scenes of desperate suffering in Gaza, where vast areas have been rendered fields of rubble by incessant Israeli strikes, the strip’s civil defence agency reported that 20 people were killed when an aid truck overturned on a crowd of people.

“Twenty people were killed and dozens injured around midnight last night in a truck carrying aid overturned … while hundreds of civilians were waiting for aid,” said the agency’s spokesperson, Mahmoud Bassal.

The incident took place near the Nuseirat refugee camp as the truck was driving on an unsafe road that Israel had previously bombed, Bassal added.

Amid acute shortages of aid, trucks entering Gaza have been surrounded and looted by hungry Palestinians on numerous occasions, contributing to a pervasive sense of chaos.

The new forced displacement order for Gaza City was made as Israeli media reported Netanyahu’s apparent determination to push ahead with an expanded war after consultations with his military chiefs on Tuesday and despite growing disquiet from serving and former Israeli security officials over the proposals reportedly including the Israel Defense Forces chief of staff, Eyal Zamir.

According to reports, Zamir warned Netanyahu during a tense, three-hour meeting on Tuesday that the plan could trap the military in the territory amid concerns Israel’s military is already badly overstretched. Zamir has made no public statements on the matter.

Critics of the plan say any push for full occupation – a demand being made by Israel’s far right – would put the lives of Israeli hostages in Gaza at risk, could take between a year and two years to fully achieve, and would come at the expense of the country’s increasing diplomatic isolation, with the international community increasingly horrified by Israel’s actions.

Among those who spoke out against the plan on Wednesday was the Israeli opposition leader, Yair Lapid. “I told Netanyahu that occupying Gaza is a very bad idea,” Lapid said after meeting the Israeli prime minister. “You don’t make such a move if a majority of the people aren’t with you.”

Other critics include former leaders of Israel’s Shin Bet internal security service, the Mossad spy agency and the military – and also the former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak. In a video posted to social media this week, they said far-right members of the government were holding Israel “hostage” in prolonging the conflict.

Netanyahu’s objectives in Gaza are “a fantasy” said Yoram Cohen, a former head of Shin Bet, in the video.

Amid signs of divisions between Netanyahu and military commanders, the defence minister, Israel Katz, said on Wednesday that the army’s chief of staff, Eyal Zamir, could “express his views”, but that the military would ultimately have to “execute” any government decisions on Gaza.

Katz made the statement on X after reports in the Israeli media in recent days suggested that Zamir is opposed to a government plan to fully occupy the Gaza Strip.

“It is the right and duty of the chief of staff to express his position in the appropriate forums, and after decisions are made by the political echelon, the will execute them with determination and professionalism … until the war’s objectives are achieved,” Katz wrote.

“As the defence minister responsible for the on behalf of the government, I must ensure that these decisions are carried out – and so it will be,” he added.

Gaza’s health ministry said that at least 135 Palestinians, including 87 people seeking food, had been killed and 771 injured in Israeli attacks across Gaza in the past 24 hours.

Peter Beaumont is a senior international reporter who has reported extensively from conflict zones including Africa, the Balkans, the Middle East and Ukraine. The former Jerusalem correspondent of the Guardian, he has won several awards, including the Orwell Prize for his work in Iraq, and is the author of The Secret Life of War: Journeys Through Modern Conflict