Netanyahu says Israel is not seeking to occupy Gaza
Benjamin Netanyahu has said Israel does not seek to conquer, occupy or govern Gaza after its war against Hamas, but a “credible force” would be needed to enter the Palestinian territory if necessary to prevent the emergence of militant threats.
Netanyahu suggested earlier this week that Israel would be responsible for Gaza security indefinitely, drawing pushback from the United States, Israel’s main ally.
Speaking on Fox News on Thursday, the Israeli prime minister said: “We don’t seek to conquer Gaza, we don’t seek to occupy Gaza, and we don’t seek to govern Gaza.”
It came as Palestinian officials said Israel launched airstrikes on or near at least three hospitals on Friday, further stressing the Palestinian territory’s precarious health system as it struggles to cope with thousands of people wounded or displaced in Israel’s war against Hamas militants. Israel has not responded to the claims.
Palestinian officials said the sites included the grounds of Gaza’s biggest hospital, Al Shifa, which the IDF said was situated in an area it called “the heart of intelligence and operational activities” for Hamas when it planned the 7 October attacks. Hamas and hospital staff have denied this, saying the IDF is using the allegation as a pretext to strike the hospital.
Early on Friday, Gaza ministry of health spokesperson Ashraf Al-Qidra told Al Jazeera television that Israel targeted the Gaza City medical complex’s courtyard and there were casualties, but he did not provide details. Hospital director Abu Salmiya told Al Jazeera that at least six people had died in the strike.
Palestinian media published video footage of Al Shifa, which Reuters was not immediately able to authenticate, that it said showed the aftermath of an Israeli attack on a parking lot where displaced Palestinians were sheltered and journalists were observing.
“With ongoing strikes and fighting nearby (Al Shifa), we are gravely concerned about the wellbeing of thousands of civilians there, many children among them, seeking medical care and shelter,” Human Rights Watch said online.
Qidra said Al-Rantisi pediatric hospital and Al-Nasr children’s hospital “have been witnessing a series of direct attacks and bombardments” on Friday. He said strikes on the hospital grounds at Al-Rantisi set vehicles on fire but they had been partly extinguished.
Israel’s military did not immediately comment on Qidra’s statement, which Reuters could not independently verify.
Thousands of Palestinians continued to flee south from northern Gaza on Thursday as the White House announced that Israelwould begin to implement four-hour “humanitarian pauses” in parts of the area to allow people to leave.
The US national security spokesperson, John Kirby, said the pauses would allow people to pass along two humanitarian corridors, which he described as “a significant first step”.
In the hours after the statement, there was no sign of a let-up in the fighting that has laid waste to the coastal territory.
Israel’s bombardment of Gaza has killed more than 10,800 Palestinians, according to health officials there. A humanitarian catastrophe has unfolded as basic supplies run out and wounded people overwhelm a fragile medical system. Hamas militants rampaged through southern Israeli communities on 7 October in an attack that Israel says killed 1,400 people.
US officials say the Palestinian Authority (PA), which has limited self-rule in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, should return to govern Gaza after the war. Hamas seized control of Gaza from the PA forces of President Mahmoud Abbas in 2007.
Top Palestinian officials, including Abbas, say a PA return to Gaza must be accompanied by a political solution that ends Israel’s occupation of territory it captured in the 1967 Middle East war.
Netanyahu said on Thursday that after the war, “what we have to see is Gaza demilitarised, deradicalised and rebuilt”.
Palestinian prime minister Mohammad Shtayyeh told PBS this week the PA would not return to Gaza “on the back of an Israeli tank”.
