Benjamin Netanyahu has said Israel intends to take full military control of the Gaza Strip before handing over governing responsibilities to Arab forces.
The Israeli prime minister spoke to Fox News’ Bill Hemmer ahead of a key security cabinet meeting to decide whether to order a full military occupation of the wartorn strip – a move that UN officials have said would have “catastrophic consequences”.
When asked if Israel would take control of the entire 26-mile strip, Mr Netanyahu said on Wednesday: “We intend to.”
“We don’t want to keep it. We want to have a security perimeter,” he continued. “We don’t want to govern it. We don’t want to be there as a governing body.”
He said that Israel instead wanted to hand over the territory to Arab forces that would govern it, although it remains unclear who would take on the role.
Hamas has said that Mr Netanyahu’s statements “confirm that he seeks to get rid of his prisoners and sacrifice them to serve his personal interests and extremist ideological agendas”.
They added: “We affirm that Gaza will remain resistant to the occupation and attempts to impose guardianship over it.
“Expanding the aggression against our Palestinian people will not be a walk in the park, and the price will be heavy and costly for the occupation…”
Meanwhile, a Jordanian official told Reuters that Arabs would “only support what Palestinians agree and decide on,” affirming that “security in Gaza must be done through legitimate Palestinian institutions”.
The security cabinet session follows a meeting this week with the head of the military, which Israeli officials have described as tense as Israel’s military chief of staff, Lt Gen Eyal Zamir, pushed back on expanding the campaign.
Israeli media has said Mr Netanyahu sees this as the only way to destroy Hamas and free the remaining hostages following a breakdown of ceasefire talks. But Lt Gen Zamir and some other ministers have warned this move could be disastrous for the hostages and the population within Gaza.
Opinion polls show that most Israelis want the war to end in a deal that would see the release of the remaining hostages held by Hamas. It is believed that of the 50 remaining hostages inside Gaza, around 20 are still alive.
Families of the hostages and released hostages, alongside hundreds of supporters, gathered to protest outside the Israeli cabinet session in Jerusalem on Wednesday evening. The families chained themselves in front of government offices.
Anat Angrest, mother of the still-captive Matan Angrest, said: “For a year and 10 months we’ve been trying to believe that everything is being done to bring them back – you have failed.
“Now it’s necessary to do the one thing the government hasn’t yet done – put a comprehensive deal on the table that will bring them all home together.
“Exactly a year ago, we were told that military pressure would bring them home – a few weeks after that, six hostages were murdered in tunnels.”
Meanwhile, Omar Awadallah, the Palestinian deputy foreign minister, told The Independent he believes that Mr Netanyahu’s statements were intended to tank any ceasefire deal and that true security for Israelis and Palestinians can only come through peace not more conflict.
“Netanyahu saying this is an attempt to undermine any effort for a real ceasefire in the Gaza Strip – he is using this smoke screen of controlling all of Gaza while Israel is already the occupying power,” he said.
“We believe that security comes with peace, not with not reoccupying Gaza or committing genocide against the Palestinian people or violating international law. Security comes with peace, with stability, with what the international community is willing to do to achieve that.”
He said that while Palestinians welcomed additional pressure on Israel from countries like the UK and France, who have pledged to recognise the state of Palestine under certain conditions.
“To the international community, are we going to accept apartheid colonialism in the 21 century?,” he said. “This is our problem with the international community and some international players – you should take action. Words are not not enough.”
As Mr Netanyahu discussed the next steps of Israel’s military expansion, at least 42 Palestinians were killed in airstrikes and shootings across southern Gaza, according to local hospitals on Thursday.
At least 13 were seeking aid in an Israeli military zone in southern Gaza where UN aid convoys are regularly overwhelmed by looters and desperate crowds.
Another two were killed on roads leading to nearby sites run by the controversial US and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), according to Nasser Hospital, which received the bodies.
Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) released a report on Thursday in which it called for an end to the dismantling of the controversial aid organisation’s scheme, as well as the restoration of the UN-coordinated aid delivery mechanism.
Raquel Ayora, general director for MSF Spain, said: “In MSF’s nearly 54 years of operations, rarely have we seen such levels of systematic violence against unarmed civilians. The GHF distribution sites masquerading as ‘aid’ have morphed into a laboratory of cruelty. This must stop now.”
