Netanyahu says Israel intends to take control of Gaza in interview

In an interview with Fox News, Israeli PM says Israel wants to take control – but not govern – the Gaza Strip.

In an interview with Fox News, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said Israel intends to take control of the entire Gaza Strip, but does not want to govern it.

His comments came on Thursday shortly before Israel’s cabinet meets to consider his proposal to take over the Strip.

“We intend to [take over] in order to ensure our security, remove Hamas [from] there … and to pass it to civilian governance that is not Hamas and not anyone advocating the destruction of Israel,” he said.

Netanyahu said in the interview that Israel wants a security perimeter, and wants to hand Gaza over to Arab forces to govern the territory.

“We don’t want to keep it. We want to have a security perimeter. We don’t want to govern it. We don’t want to be there as a governing body.”

Hamas said in a statement that the remarks constituted “a coup” amid the Gaza ceasefire negotiations.

Netanyahu’s plans to expand Israel’s Gaza offensive show his aim is to sacrifice Israel’s own captives to serve his personal interests, Hamas added in its statement.

As the Israeli security cabinet meeting kicked off, hundreds rallied near the prime minister’s office in Jerusalem, where they called for a deal to release the captives.

The meeting comes as international outrage over the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza has ratcheted up pressure on Israel, with United Nations agencies warning of famine in the devastated territory.

Gaza’s hospitals have recorded four new deaths “due to famine and malnutrition over the past 24 hours”, according to the enclave’s Health Ministry, raising the total number of hunger-related deaths to 197, including 96 children, since Israel’s war on Gaza after the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, attacks on southern Israel.

Al Jazeera’s Hoda Abdel-Hamid noted that Netanyahu’s statements were quite different from what had been reported in Israeli media about a full-blown occupation of Gaza, but cautioned that “this is an interview that he gave to one of the American networks”.

For days now, Israeli media has been reporting that Netanyahu is set to seek approval to expand military operations, including in densely populated areas where captives are believed to be held.

This comes despite growing concern among Israelis about the fate of the remaining captives, some of whose families set sail from the port of Ashkelon on Thursday seeking to approach the Gaza Strip.

In the run-up to the meeting, rumours have been rife in the Israeli press about disagreements between the cabinet and Israel’s military chief, Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir, who is said to oppose plans to fully reoccupy Gaza.

On Wednesday, Defence Minister Israel Katz had weighed in on social media, saying that “it is the right and duty of the chief of staff to express his position”, but the military must ultimately respect any policies adopted by the government.

In a statement released by the military on Thursday, Zamir underscored his independence, promising to “continue to express our position without fear”.

“We are not dealing with theory – we are dealing with matters of life and death, with the defence of the state, and we do so while looking directly into the eyes of our soldiers and citizens,” Zamir said in the statement.

Farhan Haq, a spokesman for the UN Secretary General, warned of “the prospect of huge levels of humanitarian suffering, including potential starvations that that could worsen if the conflict gets gets worse.”

Gideon Levy, an Israeli journalist at local newspaper Haaretz, says the Israeli prime minister’s remarks about another governing body taking over Gaza are “far-fetched” and not realistic.

“What does he mean, another force will take over Gaza? Who is going to get into Gaza, who will be willing to do so, except for the Israeli military, obviously?” Levy told Al Jazeera.

He said it appeared clear that the real goal of such a move is “aiming at an ethnic cleansing of Gaza”.

“There is a goal for this war … to push all the people of Gaza to this ‘humanitarian’ concentration camp and then offer them to leave Gaza,” Levy said.

Source:

Al Jazeera and news agencies

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