From the Liveblog of
Thursday, October 19, 2023
Lapid says best option would be to return Gaza to PA after defeat of Hamas
Carrie Keller-Lynn is a former political and legal correspondent for The Times of Israel
Opposition Leader Yair Lapid says the best solution for a post-Hamas Gaza Strip would be to return the coastal enclave to Palestinian Authority control.
“I think in the end the best thing is that the Palestinian Authority goes back into Gaza,” he says in response to a Times of Israel question at a media briefing in Tel Aviv.
“It’s not ideal, and if you ask me what the exit strategy should be, it should be helping the international community help [the Palestinian Authority take control,]” he adds.
Lapid says that: “This is the way things were before; the Palestinian Authority still has about 20,000 people working for them in Gaza, and a lot of the facilities and civil organizations there are run by them remotely.”
Hamas ousted the PA from Gaza in 2007 in a violent coup.
Promising that “we will not rest until Hamas is gone, and [then there will be] a governmental vacuum there,” he clarifies that “we have a fight with Hamas, not with the people of Gaza.”
