From the Liveblog of
Thursday, August 7, 2025
Netanyahu: Israel aims to take full control of Gaza, then hand it over to Arab forces
Add ToI as a Preferred Source on GoogleWASHINGTON — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says that Israel intends to take military control of all of Gaza and will eventually hand it over to armed forces that will govern it properly.
“We intend to, in order to assure our security, remove Hamas there, enable the population to be free of Gaza, and to pass it civilian governance,” Netanyahu says in an interview with Fox News when asked if Israel would take control of the entire 26-mile strip. “We don’t want to keep it. We want to have a security perimeter. We don’t want to govern it. We don’t want to be there as a governing body.”
“We want to hand it over to Arab forces that will govern it properly, without threatening us, and [to give] Gazans a good life,” he says.
FOX: Will Israel take control of all of Gaza?
NETANYAHU: We intend to pic.twitter.com/7fXkcbPeoy
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 7, 2025
Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.
The Times of Israel Community.