Netanyahu: Israel to Manage Gaza's Security for 'Indefinite Period' After War

Facts

• A month into the war triggered by the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that the country would manage the 'overall security responsibility' of Gaza for an indefinite period after the war.¹
• In an interview with ABC News that aired Monday, Netanyahu said: 'When we don’t have that security responsibility, what we have is the eruption of Hamas terror on a scale that we couldn’t imagine.' The comments come after US Pres. Joe Biden last month warned Israel against a full-scale occupation of Gaza, stating that doing so would be 'a big mistake.'²
• Biden again spoke with Netanyahu on Monday, according to the White House, and reportedly advocated for 'tactical pauses' in fighting in Gaza for humanitarian reasons.³
• John Kirby, the White House National Security Council spokesman, told reporters: 'You can expect that we're going to continue to advocate for temporary and localized pauses in the fighting. We consider ourselves at the beginning of this conversation, not at the end of it.'³
• Addressing the question of a pause with ABC News, Netanyahu indicated he was open to 'tactical little pauses' for the passage of goods or hostages but reaffirmed his stance that there would be no 'general cease-fire' without the release of hostages.⁴
• The comments come as UN Secretary General António Guterres reiterated his calls for a cease-fire on Monday. Using his strongest language yet, Guterres said that Gaza was becoming a 'graveyard for children.' According to Gaza's Hamas-run Ministry of Health, the death toll has exceeded 10K people — more than 4K of which were children.⁵

Sources: ¹The Times of Israel, ²Al Jazeera (a), ³Reuters, ⁴ABC News and ⁵Al Jazeera (b).

Narratives

• Pro-Israel narrative, as provided by The Times of Israel. After Hamas' heinous attack on Israel, the country has a right and a duty to carry out this operation against Gaza — including taking control of the enclave's security for an indefinite period — to ensure such an attack on Israel does not take place again.
• Pro-Palestine narrative, as provided by The New Arab. As Israel has done time again with the Palestinians, although it illegally occupies their land, it claims that it is in fact the victim. While Hamas' attacks were tragic, the decades of death and destruction imposed on Palestinians by Israel that incubated this violence cannot be ignored.

Predictions