Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tuesday that the Israeli army will have to maintain unlimited security control in the Gaza Strip long after the war against Hamas ends.
Netanyahu said at a press conference that Gaza will have to remain demilitarized and that only the Israeli army will be able to guarantee this.
“No international force can be responsible for this,” he said, quoted by the US agency AP.
“I am not willing to close my eyes and accept any other agreement,” Netanyahu said.
Together with Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, Netanyahu insisted that only the Israeli army can guarantee the demilitarization of the Gaza Strip.
“We saw what happened in other places where international forces went to demilitarize,” he said, according to the Spanish agency EFE.
Netanyahu reiterated that “the only way to end the war and do so quickly is to take decisive new measures against Hamas and eradicate it.”
Israel considers the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, which has controlled the Gaza Strip since 2007, a terrorist organization, as do the United States and the European Union.
In an unprecedented attack, Hamas commandos carried out an operation in Israel on October 7 that left 1,200 dead and more than two hundred Israeli and foreign hostages, according to Israeli authorities.
In retaliation, Israel vowed to annihilate Hamas and immediately began an air and ground offensive against the small Palestinian territory of 2.3 million inhabitants.
Hamas claimed this Tuesday that Israeli bombings killed 16,248 people in Gaza, according to the French agency AFP.
The two sides observed a truce between November 24 and 30, during which Hamas released 105 hostages, including 80 Israelis, in exchange for 240 Palestinians imprisoned in Israel.
Israeli authorities said 138 hostages remain detained in Gaza.
At the news conference, Netanyahu also criticized human rights and women’s rights groups for not openly addressing abuses he said were committed by Hamas.
“I ask women’s rights organizations, human rights organizations: have you heard of rapes of Israeli women, of horrible atrocities, of sexual mutilations? Where the hell are they?” she said.
Netanyahu said he hoped “all leaders, governments and civilized nations” would speak out against what he described as an atrocity.
The head of the Israeli government added that he had heard “heartbreaking stories of sexual abuse and unprecedented cases of cruel rape.”
Source: TSF
