Israel plans to control Gaza’s ‘overall security’ after the war

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has given the clearest indication yet of what Israel may have planned for the aftermath of the war in the Gaza Strip. He warns that it will have to monitor “general security” there once the fighting is over to prevent future attacks.

With Israel showing little appetite for a return to the days of a full military occupation of Gaza, Mr. Netanyahu offered few details about what his country’s role there might look like — but he made clear it would be significant. The goal, he said inside an interview with ABC News which aired on Monday is aimed at preventing a repeat of the Hamas attack that killed more than 1,400 people on October 7.

“Israel will – indefinitely – have overall security responsibility, because we have seen what happens when we don’t have it,” Mr Netanyahu said. “If we don’t have that security responsibility, what we have is the eruption of Hamas terror on a scale we couldn’t imagine.”

His comments were quickly endorsed by others in Israel, including opposition leader Yair Lapid, who suggested Israel did not want to rule Gaza. Israeli forces previously withdrew from the area in 2005, and President Biden has warned that it would be “a big mistake” if they reoccupied it.

Mr Netanyahu’s comments came as Israelis marked the month of the Hamas attack with small gestures and anguished calls for the return of the more than 240 hostages taken by Hamas fighters during their attack. Across the country, people lowered flags to half-staff at city halls and courthouses and stopped for a minute of silence at workplaces, schools and college campuses. Cafes set up shrines where people lit memorial candles.

In Gaza, heavy Israeli airstrikes, intensifying ground operations and a dire lack of basic resources have led to a rising death toll and widespread suffering. According to the Ministry of Health, which operates under the political arm of Hamas, more than 10,000 people, including more than 4,100 children, have been killed in the area.

The Secretary General of the United Nations, António Guterres, said It was announced on Monday that 89 employees of the UN agency that helps Palestinian refugees, known as UNRWA, had also been killed in Gaza. That is more “than in any comparable period in the history of our organization,” he told reporters, saying many of the employees had been killed along with their family members.

With fighting still raging in Gaza, Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said last week that the United States was in talks with Israel and other regional leaders about what “the day after” should look like. According to him, two things were clear: Hamas cannot remain in power and Israel has no desire to reoccupy Gaza.