Israel’s military has drawn up plans to reconquer Gaza in a bid to finally defeat Hamas, paving the way for a long-running occupation of the besieged enclave.

According to the plan, the IDF would call up several combat divisions to reinvade and subdue Hamas, take control of wide swaths of the enclave and force the territory’s 2.2mn population into a small, so-called humanitarian zone along the Mediterranean coast.

One of the people familiar with the deliberations said Israel could take over the distribution of all humanitarian aid and had recently assessed how many calories each Palestinian would require. Another said the military was considering options including distributing aid directly, or through private contractors, to ensure Hamas could not benefit.

The UN said on Monday that it would withdraw a third of its international staff from Gaza after determining that an Israeli tank had fired a shell into a UN compound last week, killing a European aid worker and injuring five others, according to spokesman Stéphane Dujarric. The IDF has denied attacking the compound.