After PM knocks Trump on Gaza panel, Ben Gvir calls for return to war with ‘overwhelming force’

National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir calls for a full return to war in Gaza after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office stated that the US did not coordinate with Israel on the composition of a key panel intended to play a central role in the Strip’s postwar governance.

The panel, the Gaza Board of Peace’s executive committee, includes top officials from Turkey and Qatar, both of which have been highly critical of Israel’s prosecution of the war in Gaza. The premier’s office said the unveiling of the board “contradicts” Israeli policy.

“I commend the Prime Minister for his important statement. The Gaza Strip does not need any ‘governing council’ to oversee its ‘rehabilitation’ — it needs to be cleared of Hamas terrorists, who must be eliminated, alongside the encouragement of large-scale voluntary emigration, in accordance with President Trump’s original plan,” writes the far-right minister in a Hebrew-language post on X.

Trump called early last year for the permanent relocation of Gaza’s population and for the US to take over the postwar Strip, but has since abandoned that plan and is focused on implementing the current Gaza peace framework, which calls for Palestinians not to be displaced from Gaza.

Ben Gvir calls on Netanyahu “to instruct the IDF to prepare to return to the fighting in the Strip with overwhelming force, in order to achieve the central objective of the war: the destruction of Hamas.”