Israel has no intention of relinquishing control over Gaza once the current war it is waging in the strip ends. Israeli Prime Minister Beniamin Netanyahu warned on Monday that Tel Aviv will be in charge of the security of the Palestinian territory indefinitely once the war ends. Likewise, and far from accepting the ceasefire demanded by the United Nations, the president was open to considering "small tactical pauses" in the Gaza fighting to allow the Israeli hostages in the hands of Hamas to leave or for aid to circulate, which enters in a dropper.
In statements to the American network ABC, Netanyahu assumed that his country will control the Palestinian territory. "I believe that Israel will have, for an indefinite period, overall responsibility for security because we have seen what happens when we don't have it," the president said in the interview. "When we don't have that security responsibility, what we have is an eruption of Hamas terror on a scale we couldn't imagine," he added.
When asked who should govern Gaza, the president replied: "Those who do not want to follow the path of Hamas." The US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, pointed out the Palestinian National Authority, to its president, Mahmud Abbas, as part of the political solution of the strip once the war ends. The Palestinian president assumed the role, although any government in the strip that leaves a pact with Israel could further damage Abbas's already greatly diminished popularity.
Now that Netanyahu has expressed his intention to maintain strict control over the territory, inhabited before the current conflict by some 2.3 million Palestinians. Israel withdrew its security force from the Strip in 2005, a year before Hamas won the elections. However, Tel Aviv has maintained control over the coastal enclave by land, sea and air. And a strict blockade since the victory of the Islamist group that makes the territory dependent on Israel (and humanitarian aid) for access to energy and basic goods. The United Nations, including the European Union, consider Gaza a territory occupied by Israel.
Regarding incessant calls to stop hostilities, Netanyahu insisted that a general ceasefire would hamper his country's war effort, but that Israel will continue to consider suspending fighting for humanitarian reasons, an idea supported by Israel's main ally, the United States. United, depending on the circumstances.
"As for small tactical pauses - an hour here, an hour there - we have had them before. I guess we will check the circumstances to allow merchandise, humanitarian goods to arrive, or our hostages, individual hostages, to leave," Netanyahu said in the interview that will be broadcast tonight. "But I don't think there will be a general ceasefire."
Both Israel and Hamas have rejected growing calls to stop the fighting. Israel says the hostages should be freed first, while the United States insists it accept "humanitarian pauses." Hamas says it will not free them or stop fighting while Gaza is under attack.
In a new attempt to call for an urgent ceasefire, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned Monday that Gaza is becoming a "children's graveyard." "IDF ground operations and continued shelling are affecting civilians, hospitals, refugee camps, mosques, churches and UN facilities, including shelters. No one is safe," Guterres reminded reporters. "At the same time, Hamas and other militants use civilians as human shields and continue to fire rockets indiscriminately into Israel," he said.
International organizations have reported that hospitals cannot care for the wounded and that food and drinking water are running out. Providing aid is not enough. "We need an immediate humanitarian ceasefire. 30 days have passed. Enough is enough. This must stop now," the heads of several United Nations agencies demanded in a statement on Monday.
One month after the outbreak of the war between Israel and the Palestinian militias led by Hamas, the death toll in the besieged Gaza Strip according to data from this Monday already exceeds 10,000, more than 70% of them women, children and seniors.
And the bombings continue to claim lives. At least 23 Palestinians were killed in two separate Israeli airstrikes early Tuesday on the southern Gaza cities of Khan Younis and Rafah, health officials in the strip said. In Khan Younis, a man rescued from the rubble of a house where Palestinian health officials said 11 people had died warned that Israel would be "taught a very hard lesson." "This is the bravery of so-called Israel, they show their strength and power against civilians, babies inside, children inside and the elderly," the man, who identified himself as Ahmed Ayesh, told reporters.
After surrounding the densely populated city of Gaza in the north of the coastal enclave, where the Islamist group Hamas is based, the Israeli army said it had taken control of a building where several militants had barricaded themselves near the Al Quds hospital and which was prepared to attack fighters hidden in a labyrinth of underground tunnels.
