Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in an interview released on Thursday that Israel will take over the Gaza Strip whether or not Hamas agrees to a ceasefire deal.
The interview with Sky News Australia appears to have been recorded before Hamas had publicly accepted the latest ceasefire proposal from mediators Qatar and Egypt, which was virtually identical to one that Israel had previously accepted.
Netanyahu was asked by the interviewer if he still planned to “take over Gaza and eliminate the terrorists” if Hamas accepted a deal. He replied, “We’re going to do that anyway. That there was never a question that we’re not going to leave Hamas there.”
Also on Thursday, Netanyahu said that he was going to approve the Israeli military’s plans to take over Gaza City, which involve the forced displacement of over 1 million Palestinian civilians and the total destruction of the city. Netanyahu and other Israeli officials have been clear that their ultimate goal is the ethnic cleansing of Gaza’s Palestinian population.
“I came today to the Gaza Division in order to approve the plans that the IDF presented to me and to the defense minister for taking control of Gaza City and for defeating Hamas,” he said in a video statement filmed outside the Israeli military’s Gaza Division headquarters.
The Israeli leader also said that he had ordered the start of negotiations to free all remaining Israeli captives in Gaza. “At the same time, I have instructed to immediately begin negotiations for the release of all our hostages and the end of the war under conditions acceptable to Israel,” he said.
The proposal Hamas accepted was for the release of 10 Israeli hostages and a 60-day ceasefire, during which the two sides would try to negotiate a long-term deal. According to The Times of Israel, Israel had previously approved an “identical framework earlier this summer,” but it has yet to respond to Hamas’s acceptance.
According to a report from Drop Site News, Hamas made significant concessions toward Israel’s previous position in accepting the proposal. Hamas said in a statement that the lack of a response from Israel showed that Netanyahu is “the real obstacle to any agreement and that he does not care about the lives of his captives nor is he serious about retrieving them.”
