By Evgenia Filimianova and Ryan Morgan
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Aug. 7 that Israel plans to establish full military control over the Gaza Strip, with the goal of eventually transferring authority to a local security force capable of governing the territory effectively, without the influence of Hamas.
In an interview with Fox News, Netanyahu was asked whether Israel would take control of the entire 26-mile-long coastal enclave.
“We intend to, in order to ensure our security, remove Hamas there,” he responded.
Netanyahu said that once Hamas is removed, governance in Gaza would be handed over to civilian authorities not aligned with the terrorist group Hamas or groups seeking the destruction of Israel.
“We want to liberate ourselves and liberate the people of Gaza from the awful terror of Hamas,” he said.
Netanyahu is expected to meet with his security cabinet on Thursday to direct the military on the next steps to meet his goals in Gaza.
Since the start of the Gaza conflict on Oct. 7, 2023, Netanyahu has said that Israel’s goal is to defeat Hamas, release hostages taken from Israel, and ensure that Gaza would never again harbor a group like Hamas and pose a threat to Israeli security.
More than 700 civilians and around 380 Israeli security forces were killed during the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack across southern Israel.
The Gaza Ministry of Health, which operates under the control of the Hamas terrorist group, reports that more than 60,000 people have been killed in Gaza since Oct. 7, 2023, but it does not distinguish between combatants and civilians and includes some deaths from natural causes. The Epoch Times cannot verify the casualty numbers.
Last week, at a U.N. conference in New York, representatives of 17 individual countries, the European Union, and the Arab League signed a declaration condemning Hamas, while supporting a Palestinian state.
“Gaza is an integral part of a Palestinian State and must be unified with the West Bank. There must be no occupation, siege, territorial reduction, or forced displacement,” the declaration states.
“Governance, law enforcement and security across all Palestinian territory must lie solely with the Palestinian Authority, with appropriate international support.”
Israel has rejected a two-state solution. Israel’s U.N. Ambassador Danny Danon criticized the conference, saying, “There are those in the world who fight terrorists and extremist forces and then there are those who turn a blind eye to them or resort to appeasement.”
The United States boycotted the meeting, with State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce on July 28 calling it “unproductive and ill timed.”
U.N. officials have opposed a possible expansion of Israel’s military operations in Gaza.
“This would risk catastrophic consequences for millions of Palestinians and could further endanger the lives of the remaining hostages in Gaza,” U.N. Assistant Secretary-General Miroslav Jenča said on Aug. 5.
Earlier this week, U.S. President Donald Trump said that decisions about Israel’s potential military control of the enclave were a matter for the Israeli government.
