Israel does not seek to occupy Gaza — Netanyahu

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said his country does not seek to conquer, occupy or govern Gaza after its war against Hamas resistance fighters but a "credible force" would be needed to enter the Palestinian enclave if necessary to prevent the emergence of threats.

Speaking to US television's Fox News on Thursday, Netanyahu said: "We don't seek to conquer Gaza, we don't seek to occupy Gaza, and we don't seek to govern Gaza."

Netanyahu said a civilian government would need to take shape in Israel-besieged Gaza but that Israel would make sure an attack like October 7 does not happen again.

"So, we have to have a credible force that, if necessary, will enter Gaza and kill the killers. Because that's what will prevent the reemergence of a Hamas-like entity," Netanyahu said.

Pushback from US

Netanyahu's comments this week suggesting that Israel would be responsible for Gaza security indefinitely drew pushback from the United States, Israel's main ally.

Washington has said it would oppose Israeli post-war occupation of Gaza, where Israel has waged a ruthless campaign to destroy Palestinian lives and infrastructure after Hamas fighters rampaged through southern Israeli communities on October 7 in an unprecedented blitz that Israel says killed 1,400 people.

Hamas says its military action was in response to Israel's desecration of Al Aqsa Mosque in occupied East Jerusalem, Islam's third holiest site, and increased state-sanctioned Israeli settler violence across the occupied Palestinian territories.

Khalil al-Hayya, a member of Hamas' leadership, told the New York Times on Wednesday that the group's unprecedented assault on Israel was intended to shatter the status quo and open a new chapter in its fight against Israel.

"We succeeded in putting the Palestinian issue back on the table, and now no one in the region is experiencing calm," he said, according to the US newspaper.

Humanitarian catastrophe

Israel's bombardment of Gaza has killed more than 10,800 Palestinians, according to health officials there. A humanitarian catastrophe has unfolded as basic supplies run out and wounded people overwhelm a fragile medical system.

US officials say the Palestinian Authority (PA), which has limited self-rule in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, should return to govern Gaza after the war. Hamas assumed control of Gaza from the PA forces of President Mahmoud Abbas in 2007.

Top Palestinian officials, including Abbas, say a PA return to Gaza must be accompanied by a political solution that ends Israel's occupation of territory it captured in the 1967 Middle East war.

Netanyahu said that after the war, "what we have to see is Gaza demilitarized, deradicalised and rebuilt."

Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh told PBS this week the PA would not return to Gaza "on the back of an Israeli tank".