From the Liveblog of
Saturday, November 11, 2023
Netanyahu indicates Israel will oppose Palestinian Authority’s return to Gaza after war
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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu indicates Israel will oppose the return of the Palestinian Authority to Gaza following the war there against Hamas.
This is a stance that directly contradicts US policy, with Secretary of State Antony Blinken having said on Wednesday, for instance, that Gaza must have “Palestinian governance, Gaza unified with the West Bank under the Palestinian Authority.”
Taking a question on the issue, Netanyahu reiterates first that, after the war, Israel will retain “overall security control, including the capacity to go in whenever we want to eliminate terrorists who may pop up again.”
“I will tell you what there will not be. There will not be Hamas,” he says. “There will also not be a civil authority that educates its children to hate Israel, to kill Israelis, to eliminate the State of Israel. There cannot be an authority that pays the families of murderers [amounts] based on the number they murdered. There cannot be an authority whose leader still has not condemned the terrible [October 7] massacre 30 days later,” the premier says, referring to PA President Mahmoud Abbas. “That cannot be.”
“There needs to be something else there. But in any case, we must have security control,” he adds. “I insist upon it. There may be pressure on this issue. I don’t intend to cave.”
He adds: “Completion of the task [of the war in Gaza] requires that on the day after Hamas, another Hamas cannot rise there.”
The Times of Israel Community.