Israel intends to take control of the entire Gaza Strip to remove Hamas, and transfer authority to non-hostile “civilian governance,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday.
When asked whether Israel intends to take control of all of Gaza, the premier told Fox News‘s Bill Hemmer, “We intend to, in order to ensure our security.”
Netanyahu gave the interview shortly before his Security Cabinet was scheduled to meet to decide on the continuation of the war on Hamas, with one option being a full-fledged occupation of the Gaza Strip.
The continuation of the war will seek to “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,” Netanyahu told Fox News.
“We want to liberate ourselves and liberate the people of Gaza from the awful terror of Hamas,” the prime minister said.
Netanyahu stressed that the Israeli government does not “want to keep it” after taking control of the entire 26-mile-long coastal enclave.
“We want to have a security perimeter,” he said. “We don’t want to be there as a governing body. We want to hand it over to Arab forces that will govern it properly, without threatening us, and giving Gazans a good life. That’s not possible with Hamas.”
The Security Cabinet convened at 6 p.m. at the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem for the debate and a subsequent vote. The session is scheduled to last until 11 p.m. but expected to last well into the night.
A senior official told the Ynet news outlet on Wednesday afternoon that while the ministers were expected to support the proposal to occupy Gaza to defeat Hamas, “things can always change in the Middle East.”
Senior government officials told the outlet that any proposal brought to the Security Cabinet by Netanyahu would likely win a large majority.
According to the report, Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir will press ministers to vote against Netanyahu’s proposal, which he was said to believe would endanger hostages and debilitate the IDF.
Zamir will reportedly recommend a plan to encircle Gaza City and the central refugee camps while continuing raids by IDF commando units, which he believes will allow for renewed hostage talks with Hamas.
Fifty hostages remain in captivity in the Strip, including 20 to 22 who are believed to be alive after being kidnapped across the border during the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, massacre in southern Israel.
