00:00So Israel's security cabinet deliberated for a long time, 10 hours, that they have decided to go ahead with Prime Minister Netanyahu's plan to take full control of Gaza.
00:12How will the military operations work in practice?
00:17So this decision to allow for and authorize the occupation of Gaza City is less than Netanyahu was pushing for as recently as Thursday night
00:25when he told the media that he wanted the full occupation of all of Gaza that Israel doesn't currently hold, which is some 25 percent.
00:34Regardless, some have suggested that this may just be the first phase of that wider operation.
00:40In terms of when we could see military movement on the ground,
00:43satellite imagery has recently shown that a large grouping of Israeli military vehicles are gathering near the Gaza border.
00:50Analysts have said that that could be consistent with an invasion force.
00:53However, we have not yet seen the call-up of large numbers of Israeli reservists,
00:57the kind of numbers that would be needed and have been needed in the past for large-scale operations like this.
01:04Of course, also, Gaza City is home to some 800,000 Palestinians,
01:08and we would expect to see mandatory evacuation orders there, as we've seen in other areas where the Israeli military has pushed into.
01:14And we would expect to see some time for that movement to happen.
01:18Some people have said, some analysts here have said, that that could take as long as two months
01:22for the civilian population of Gaza to be evacuated.
01:26Now, when the military operation does begin,
01:28we understand that the plan would involve essentially the siege of Gaza City to begin with,
01:33where Gaza City is encircled, no food or water can get in.
01:37The idea there being to essentially starve the Hamas members who are in Gaza City.
01:43Then, of course, the ground invasion would proceed from there.
01:49Now, Netanyahu and the Security Cabinet said that they aim to disarm Hamas,
01:54they aim to demilitarize Gaza, and they aim to bring the hostages back through this operation.
01:59However, the Israeli military is believed to be completely against this,
02:02part of the reason being that they feel that this will risk the lives of dozens and dozens of their soldiers.
02:08Now, Netanyahu and the Security Cabinet said that they need to be able to do this,
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