Yoav Gallant says Israeli officials want a ‘Palestinian entity’ to run civilian affairs in Gaza after the war.

Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant has outlined Israel’s plans for the next phase of its assault on the besieged Gaza Strip and future scenarios for the day after the war ends.

“In the northern region of the Gaza strip, we will transition to a new combat approach in accordance with military achievements on the ground,” Gallant’s office said in a statement it said outlined the guiding principles reflecting Gallant’s vision for the next phases of the war on Thursday.

He said operations would include raids, demolishing tunnels, air and ground strikes, and special forces operations.

In the south of the besieged enclave – where most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population is now living, many in tents and other temporary shelters – the operation would continue to try to eliminate Hamas leaders and rescue Israeli hostages.

"It will continue for as long as is deemed necessary,” the statement said.

  • @[email protected]English
    7•11 months ago

    Gallant also outlined Israel’s plans for Gaza after the war. He said Hamas would no longer control Gaza and Israel would reserve its operational freedom of action. But he said there would be no Israeli civilian presence and Palestinian bodies would be in charge of the enclave.

    “Gaza residents are Palestinian, therefore Palestinian bodies will be in charge, with the condition that there will be no hostile actions or threats against the State of Israel,” Gallant’s office said in a statement on Thursday.

    Al Jazeera’s Sara Khairat, reporting from Tel Aviv, said Gallant made it clear that Israeli officials want a “Palestinian entity” to be in charge of running civilian affairs in the Gaza Strip, but with “very specific conditions”.

    Notable that it’s another public - this time on the record - contradiction of Smotrich and Ben-Gvir.

    It’s a bit weird because they switch from quoting Gallant to quoting Kairait, but I wonder if there’s anything to his adoption of Gantz’s “entity” language here. If so, it could be a sign of a bigger split between Gallant and Netanyahu. Might be nothing, but it would be consistent with their recent anger with him about his public statements about post-war Gaza.

    • NoneOfUrBusiness
      0•11 months ago

      Note that even if we take his statements at face value and not rightly assume he’s lying, this at best means Gaza will become like the West Bank. That’s the inevitable result of Palestinians not being able to shoot settlers.