Netanyahu: Israel will have ‘overall security responsibility’ in Gaza for ‘indefinite period’ after war
Jacob Magid is The Times of Israel's US bureau chief
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says Israel will have “overall security responsibility” over the Gaza Strip “for an indefinite period” after the war against Hamas ends.
“I think Israel for an indefinite period will have the overall security responsibility because we’ve seen what happens when we don’t have it. When we don’t have that security responsibility, what we have is the eruption of Hamas terror on a scale that we couldn’t imagine,” he tells ABC News.
The stance has been uttered by Israeli officials in recent weeks on condition of anonymity, but Netanyahu now puts the stance on the table himself.
It is not clear what Netanyahu has in mind regarding the extent of security responsibility, but Israeli officials have insisted that they don’t desire to occupy Gaza after the war.
The Biden administration has voiced its opposition to that scenario as well, while warning Jerusalem that it is more likely to find itself bogged down in Gaza if it doesn’t start drawing up a plan for who will govern the enclave if it succeeds in removing Hamas from power.
It follows comments by other Israeli officials who have said that Israel will need to maintain a military presence inside Gaza in order to serve as a buffer protecting Israeli civilians.
Also in the ABC News interview, Netanyahu is pressed on whether he’ll agree to US President Joe Biden’s call for humanitarian pauses.
He initially dodges the question, saying he opposes a more long-term ceasefire on the grounds that it would amount to a surrender to Hamas.
EXCLUSIVE: @DavidMuir interviews Israeli PM Netanyahu, pressing him on the Biden administration’s calls for a humanitarian pause in Gaza as the death toll climbs; if he bears responsibility for intelligence failures on Oct. 7; and more. https://t.co/zjSKIi5FJF pic.twitter.com/LydTy5XtZf
— World News Tonight (@ABCWorldNews) November 7, 2023
But after being pressed again, he hints at some more flexibility on the issue for the first time.
“As far as practical, little pauses — an hour here, an hour there. We’ve had them before. We’ll check the circumstances [to have additional pauses] in order to enable humanitarian goods to come in or our hostages, individual hostages to leave,” Netanyahu adds, becoming the first Israeli official to confirm that Jerusalem agreed to a temporary pause in fighting to allow a pair of hostages released by Hamas to be able to travel safely to the border, as revealed by a US official last week.
Netanyahu then indicates that he would agree to a ceasefire if Hamas releases all of the roughly 240 hostages being held in Gaza. “There would be a ceasefire for that purpose, and we’re waiting for that to happen. It hasn’t happened so far,” he says.
The premier says Israel has some intelligence regarding where the hostages are located but declines to elaborate.
Pressed as to whether the ongoing ground operation risks the lives of the hostages, Netanyahu responds, “We’re taking that into consideration,” while arguing that “until we started the ground action, there was no pressure on them to release hostages. What we saw was the minute we started the ground action, there is pressure.”
It was not clear what pressure Netanyahu was referring to, given that the only four hostages to be released by Hamas were let go before Israel began its ground invasion on October 27.

Netanyahu dismisses a question about whether there is any daylight between him and Biden regarding the war, saying he agrees with the US call for humanitarian aid to enter Gaza and is coordinating with Washington on the issue.
Still, the prime minister clarifies that he won’t give Hamas the opportunity to endanger IDF soldiers and says that Israel will do what it can to limit civilian casualties while recognizing that it will not always be able to succeed because of the terror group’s use of human shields.
Pressed on whether he should take responsibility for what unfolded on October 7 as other Israeli leaders have done, Netanyahu says, “of course” but that the issue was “going to be resolved after the war.”
“I’ve said that they’re going to be very tough questions that are going to be asked, and I’m going to be among the first to answer them. We’re not going to evade that. The responsibility of government is to protect people, and clearly that responsibility wasn’t met,” he says.
Asked about Iran and its Lebanese proxy Hezbollah amid escalating skirmishes on Israel’s northern borders, Netanyahu says he thinks “they’ve understood that if they enter the war in a significant way, the response will be very, very powerful, and I hope they don’t make that mistake.”
The ABC interview is Netanyahu’s first with American media since the war after the prime minister went on a months-long blitz across the various US networks in order to try and calm backlash over his government’s judicial overhaul effort.