The American CNN network said that the Israeli occupation army has begun implementing a large-scale operation in northern Gaza, as it issued evacuation orders for the more than 400,000 Palestinian citizens in the area, and is preventing food supplies from reaching it, just weeks after reports that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu studied and discussed the plan with the "mini-war cabinet", based on blockading the area, starving its people, and forcing Hamas to release hostages.

The network notes that the Israeli occupation forces launched the operation this week following intelligence information that it said showed “the presence of terrorists and a terrorist infrastructure in the Jabalia area in the northern Gaza Strip, as well as Hamas’s efforts to rebuild its operational capabilities in the area.” In fact, the renewed attack was much more widespread than just the Jabalia refugee camp.

Four sources told CNN that the Israeli cabinet has not approved the blockade proposal put forward by retired Gen. Giora Eiland. But the operation currently underway is similar to the plan Eiland presented (known as the General’s Plan) in a public video, and in a private session of the Israeli cabinet and the Knesset.

A former senior military official familiar with the thinking of the Israeli government and security leadership — though not directly involved in decision-making — told CNN that the cabinet had adopted a “version” of Eiland’s proposal, which became known as “the general’s plan.”

Eiland told CNN the claim was "absolutely true" but said there were significant differences between his proposal and what was implemented on the ground. The operation comes at a time when the Israeli government is known to be considering several plans to reset the war in Gaza.

Last month, Eiland proposed forcing all civilians out of northern Gaza, including Gaza City, and then cutting off all supplies to the area. He said the goal was to force a reset on the war and throw off the calculations of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar. “The reality today in Gaza is that Sinwar is not really nervous,” he said in a video released at the time. “What [the government] embraced was the need to do more in Gaza, to change Sinwar’s mindset,” the former military official told CNN. “And that proposal was embraced without any conceivable means of violating international law.”

Retired Maj. Gen. Gershon Hacohen, who helped draft the proposal, told CNN that Eiland’s proposal did not include any plan to allow civilians in Gaza to return to northern Gaza. That would seem likely to raise accusations of ethnic cleansing, something that has already been raised by academics such as Omer Bartov, an Israeli-born professor of Holocaust and genocide studies at Brown University in Rhode Island.

"The cabinet is already acting on my recommendation to take control of northern Gaza, but I have recommended a blockade (after evacuating civilians) and stopping supplies from entering this area. None of this is happening," Eiland told CNN via text message.

On Monday, the IDF’s Arabic-language spokesperson ordered all Palestinians in the northernmost areas of Gaza—Beit Hanoun, Jabalia and Beit Lahiya—to leave and move to Mawasi, an Israeli-declared “humanitarian” zone in southern Gaza that has nevertheless been subjected to heavy aerial bombardment for months. On Saturday, the army added additional mandatory evacuation zones, dropped leaflets and posted on X, and ordered people in the Nazla area and more areas of Jabalia to leave. “The army is operating with great force against the terror organizations and will continue to do so for a long time,” Avichay Adraee said on X. “You must evacuate the area immediately via Salah a-Din Street to the humanitarian zone.”