Image Credit: AFP
JERUSALEM: Israel’s Defence Minister Israel Katz said on Tuesday that his country’s forces would be free to act in the Gaza Strip even after its war with Hamas ends.
“After eliminating Hamas’s military and governmental capabilities in Gaza, Israel would have security control over Gaza with complete freedom of action” for the Israeli military, Katz said in a post on X, noting that it was his own “position”.
Katz said that Israel’s future control over Gaza should be “exactly like in Judea and Samaria”, the biblical names for the West Bank which Israel has occupied since 1967 and where its forces conduct frequent raids.
The question of Gaza’s post-war governance has remained unresolved, more than a year since Israel vowed to crush Hamas in retaliation for its October 7, 2023 attack.
Katz’s predecessor Yoav Gallant had voiced firm opposition to any prolonged Israeli control of Gaza, from which Israel withdrew troops and settlers in 2005 after decades of direct rule.
In May, then as defence minister, Gallant said that he would “not agree to the establishment of an Israeli military administration in Gaza”.
“Israel must not have civilian control over the Gaza Strip,” Gallant said at the time, urging Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to devise a post-war plan for the territory.
Netanyahu sacked Gallant in November, citing disagreements over war policies.
The Israeli leader replaced Gallant with Katz, a former foreign minister who Israeli analysts say is more likely to endorse the Netanyahu’s views.
Hamas seized full control of Gaza in 2007, capping months of clashes with other Palestinian factions after it won legislative elections the year before.
The Hamas attack that sparked the war resulted in the deaths of 1,208 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures and includes hostages killed in captivity.
Israel’s retaliatory campaign has killed at least 45,028 people in Gaza, most of them civilians, according to the figures from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry which the United Nations considers reliable.
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