Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threatens to resume “intense fighting” in Gaza if Hamas fails to release captives held there by noon on Saturday.

    US President Donald Trump tells reporters “we’re going to take” Gaza and urges Jordan’s King Abdullah to allocate land for forcibly displaced Palestinians.

    Abdullah says he opposes any displacement of Palestinians and says Arab nations will come to the US with a response to Washington’s takeover plan. Egypt says the “comprehensive plan” will seek to rebuild Gaza without resettling Palestinians.

    Israel’s war on Gaza has killed a confirmed 48,219 people and wounded 111,665, according to the territory’s Health Ministry. Gaza’s Government Media Office has updated the death toll to at least 61,709 people, saying thousands who were missing under the rubble are now presumed dead. At least 1,139 people were killed in Israel during the October 7, 2023 attacks and more than 200 were taken captive.

    Why is Israel’s military targeting refugee camps in West Bank?

    Amjad Abu El Ezz, from the Arab American University in Ramallah, says Israel’s intention is to control all of the refugee camps in the occupied West Bank.

    This is the largest military operation since the 2003… They’ve been organizing this kind of military operation since October 7,” El Ezz told Al Jazeera.

    “So, the number of soldiers, the heavy weapons, the tanks that have been deployed a couple of days ago indicates this comes as part of the broader strategy for the Israeli army to control the West Bank and to control mainly, the more than 22 Palestinian refugee camps in the West Bank,” he said.

    These camps are “considered to be a hub for the Palestinian resistance” in the occupied West Bank, El Ezz said.

    Israeli military officials say they are targeting the camps to prevent Palestinian resistance groups from spreading to cities like Ramallah, but “everybody knows that the camps represent a significant part of the Palestinian history and struggle, [making] them a focal point of Israeli attention,” he added.

    Macron calls for ‘respect’ for Palestinians in Gaza

    The French president, in an interview with the CNN broadcaster, rejected Trump’s plans for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza, and called for “respect” for Palestinians and their Arab neighbours.

    “You cannot say to 2 million people, ‘Okay, now guess what? You will move,’” Emmanuel Macron said. “The right answer is not a real estate operation, this is a political operation.”

    He also criticised Israel’s war on Gaza.

    “I always reiterated my disagreement with [Israeli] Prime Minister Netanyahu,” Macron said. “I don’t believe, once again, that such a massive operation targeting sometimes civilian people is the right answer.”

    How is Trump’s Gaza plan viewed in Israel?

    More from Cohen, the journalist who co-produced the award-winning documentary, Killing Gaza.

    He says there’s widespread support in Israel to move Palestinians from Gaza.

    “Not only in the government, but on the street, too. Israeli society, in general, is extremely right-wing [and] is bent on the ethnic cleansing of Gaza. Actually, even the left-wing in Israel has now embraced the idea of transferring – a euphemism for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza – since Trump basically forced Netanyahu to agree to this temporary ceasefire,” Cohen said from Washington, DC.

    “So there’s quite an appetite and support for Trump’s [plan] in Israel. But I think this is going to be a poison pill if Israel were to resume military operations, this war, this genocide on Gaza,” he said.

    “The reason there was a ceasefire in the first place, in reality, is because of the ongoing resistance from Palestinian armed groups, Hamas and others in Gaza that Israel was simply not able to defeat. And Israel was basically put on the brink because its military and society were incapable of taking more.”

    Could Trump’s statements over Gaza backfire on Israel?

    Dan Cohen, a filmmaker and founder of Uncaptured News, describes Trump’s approach to the Israel-Palestine conflict as like that of a “bull in a china shop”.

    “He’s now alienating Israel’s top allies in the region, including Jordan,” Cohen told Al Jazeera from Washington, DC.

    “He’s now signalling that he will allow Israel to annex the West Bank, which would further destabilise Jordan. Trump is threatening to cut off aid and humiliating the king of Jordan in front of the world,” the journalist said.

    “And now, President [el-]Sisi of Egypt has at least postponed, if not cancelled, his trip to Washington as Trump is making demands that are simply impossible for either of those countries to fulfil. Not because of the Palestinians in Gaza, but simply because of the domestic considerations and popular sentiment.”