Netanyahu confirms intent to occupy all of Gaza, against advice of his military

by Grace Gilson

(JTA) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed Israel’s intention to occupy the full Gaza Strip Thursday, despite opposition from the Israeli military and wide swaths of Israelis who say the plan will sound a death knell for the hostages still held there.

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.

Asked whether Israel would take over Gaza, Netayahu answered, “We intend to.”

But he said he did not want to permanently control the territory, telling interviewer Bill Hemmer, “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.”

After defeating Hamas fully, Netanyahu said, Israel would pass Gaza on to “Arab forces that will govern it properly without threatening us and giving Gazans a good life.” He has previously rebuffed entreaties to make a plan for postwar governance.

Netanyahu’s 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’s 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.

The IDF released comments made by Zamir on Thursday in which he said “the culture of debate” was “a vital component of the IDF’s overall culture — both internally and externally.”

“We will continue to express our position without fear,” Zamir added. “That is the expectation we have of our commanders as well. The responsibility lies here, at this very table.”

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.

“Conquering Gaza is a bad operational idea, a bad moral idea and a bad economic idea,” Yair Lapid, the Israeli opposition leader, told reporters on Wednesday after a meeting with Netanyahu.

Netanyahu told the cabinet that the offensive is needed because other efforts have failed to return the hostages, Israeli media reported as it happened.

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.

“Military pressure kills the hostages; it doesn’t bring them back,” 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.

In the Fox interview, Netanyahu said the military occupation would pull off what 22 months of war has not: the full destruction of Hamas.

“We 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,” he said. “That’s what we want to do. We want to liberate ourselves and liberate the people of Gaza from the awful terror of Hamas.”