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<\/a><\/p>\nIsraeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sits for an interview with Fox News\u2019 Bill Hemmer to discuss plans to fully occupy Gaza. (Screenshot)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Netanyahu offered his first public confirmation of his intention in an interview Thursday on Fox News ahead of a security cabinet meeting to discuss the occupation plan.<\/p>\n
Asked whether Israel would take over Gaza, Netayahu answered, \u201cWe intend to.\u201d<\/p>\n
But he said he did not want to permanently control the territory, telling interviewer Bill Hemmer, \u201cWe don\u2019t want to keep it. We want to have a security perimeter. We don\u2019t want to govern it. We don\u2019t want to be there as a governing body.\u201d<\/p>\n
After defeating Hamas fully, Netanyahu said, Israel would pass Gaza on to \u201cArab forces that will govern it properly without threatening us and giving Gazans a good life.\u201d He has previously rebuffed entreaties to make a plan for postwar governance.<\/p>\n
Netanyahu\u2019s statements come as ceasefire negotiations between Hamas and Israel have come to an impasse. Plans to fully occupy the Gaza Strip have also reportedly drawn opposition from the IDF\u2019s chief of staff, Eyal Zamir, and the IDF has said it opposes the plan as it could potentially endanger the lives of the remaining Israeli hostages.<\/p>\n
The IDF released comments made by Zamir on Thursday in which he said \u201cthe culture of debate\u201d was \u201ca vital component of the IDF\u2019s overall culture \u2014 both internally and externally.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will continue to express our position without fear,\u201d Zamir added. \u201cThat is the expectation we have of our commanders as well. The responsibility lies here, at this very table.\u201d<\/p>\n
The occupation plans are supported by a minority of Israelis who want to see Jewish resettlement in Gaza. They are opposed by countries around the world, an increasing number of Diaspora Jews, and many families of the hostages, as well as by the Israeli political opposition.<\/p>\n
\u201cConquering Gaza is a bad operational idea, a bad moral idea and a bad economic idea,\u201d Yair Lapid, the Israeli opposition leader, told reporters on Wednesday after a meeting with Netanyahu.<\/p>\n
Netanyahu told the cabinet that the offensive is needed because other efforts have failed to return the hostages, Israeli media reported as it happened.<\/p>\n
Of the roughly 250 hostages taken when Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, about 140 were released alive during ceasefires while military forces rescued eight. There remain 50 hostages in Gaza, of whom 20 are thought to be alive.<\/p>\n
\u201cMilitary pressure kills the hostages; it doesn\u2019t bring them back,\u201d the father of Carmel Gat, one of six hostages murdered by their Hamas captors a year ago as Israeli troops neared their location, said this week.<\/p>\n
In the Fox interview, Netanyahu said the military occupation would pull off what 22 months of war has not: the full destruction of Hamas.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe intend to, in order to assure our security, remove Hamas there, enable the population to be free of Gaza and to pass it to civilian governance that is not Hamas and not anyone advocating the destruction of Israel,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s what we want to do. We want to liberate ourselves and liberate the people of Gaza from the awful terror of Hamas.\u201d<\/p>\n
Netanyahu added: “The IDF will prepare for taking control of Gaza City while distributing humanitarian assistance to the civilian population outside the combat zones,”<\/p>\n
Early Friday morning, the prime minister announced the decision of the Security Council \u2013 by majority vote \u2013 and its adoption of five principles for concluding the war:<\/p>\n
1. The disarming of Hamas.<\/p>\n
2. The return of all the hostages \u2013 the living and the deceased.<\/p>\n
3. The demilitarization of the Gaza Strip.<\/p>\n
4. Israeli security control in the Gaza Strip.<\/p>\n
5. The establishment of an alternative civil administration that is neither Hamas nor the Palestinian Authority.<\/p>\n
A decisive majority of Security Cabinet ministers believed that the alternative plan that had been submitted to the Security Cabinet would neither achieve the defeat of Hamas nor the return of the hostages.<\/p>\n