Indonesia has sent humanitarian aid to Gaza after Israel started an offensive in October 2023 that Gaza health officials say has killed more than 60,000 Palestinians, whether fighters or non-combatants.

"Indonesia will give medical help for about 2,000 Gaza residents who became victims of war, those who are wounded, buried under debris," the spokesperson, Hasan Nasbi, told reporters, adding that the exercise was not an evacuation.

Indonesia plans to allocate the facility on Galang island, off Sumatra island and south of Singapore, to treat wounded Gaza residents and temporarily shelter their families, he said, adding that nobody lived around it now.

The patients would be taken back to Gaza after they had healed, he said.

Hasan did not give a timeframe or further details, referring questions to Foreign and Defence ministries, which did not immediately respond to Reuters' requests for comment.

The plan comes months after President Prabowo Subianto's offer to shelter wounded Palestinians drew criticism from Indonesia's top clerics for seeming too close to US President Donald Trump's suggestion of permanently moving Palestinians out of Gaza.

In response to Trump's suggestion, the Foreign Ministry, which backs a two-state solution to resolve the Middle East crisis, said at the time it "strongly rejects any attempt to forcibly displace Palestinians".

A hospital to treat victims of the COVID-19 pandemic opened in 2020 on Galang, which had been until 1996 a sprawling refugee camp run by the United Nations, housing 250,000 of those who fled the Vietnam War.

Media reports in Israel have said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his cabinet may order a full military occupation of Gaza, allegedly sparking dissension from armed forces chief Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir.

On Tuesday, Netanyahu held a three-hour meeting with security chiefs including Zamir to discuss options for the continuation of the war, the premier's office said in a statement.

At the meeting, Zamir warned that a full occupation would be like "walking into a trap", public broadcaster Kan reported.

Channel 12 television said the armed forces chief suggested alternatives to a full occupation, such as encircling specific areas where Hamas militants are believed to be hunkering down.

Defence Minister Israel Katz said in post on X that while "it is the right and duty of the chief of staff to express his position in the appropriate forums", the military is bound by any decisions made by the government.

"Once decisions are made by the political echelon, the IDF will execute them with determination and professionalism," Katz said, using an acronym for the Israeli military.

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