Benjamin Netanyahu
On Saturday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ruled out a role for the present Palestinian Authority government in Gaza until the conflict between Israel and Hamas was over.
“There will have to be something else there”, Netanyahu stated when asked if the Palestinian Authority (PA), which has administrative control over the occupied West Bank, would rule Gaza after the conflict.
“There won’t be a civilian authority that educates their children to hate Israel, to kill Israelis, to wipe out the state of Israel”, Netanyahu continued.
Late last month, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken stated that the PA should restore authority of the Gaza Strip from Hamas, with foreign parties potentially filling in the meantime.
However, in a meeting with Blinken earlier this month, Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas stated that the PA could only assume control in Gaza if a comprehensive political solution to the decades-old Israel-Palestinian dispute in the West Bank, east Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip is found.
According to Israeli officials, Hamas gunmen crossed the border from Gaza into Israel on October 7 in an unprecedented onslaught that killed around 1,200 people. In response, Israel declared that it would destroy Hamas and launched a continuous bombing of the Gaza Strip, killing nearly 11,000 Palestinians, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-ruled Palestinian territory.
“There can’t be an authority headed by someone who over 30 days after the massacre, has yet to condemn the terrible massacre”, stated Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday.
“But either way there will have to be our security control”, he went on to say.
In an earlier interview, Netanyahu stated that Israel would assume overall security over Gaza for an indefinite period following the war.
Also read: WHO loses communication with Gaza hospital, claims it is surrounded by tanks
