Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union” that Israel’s military with be in Gaza until there is a new “reconstructed civilian authority.”
Anchor Dana Bash said, “The U.S. says any postwar plan for Gaza must include Palestinian-led governance and Gaza unified with the West Bank under the Palestinian Authority. You appeared to reject that yesterday. You said Israel will not accept a quote, civilian authority there that educates its children to hate Israel. I want to be clear. Are you saying Israel would not accept giving control of Gaza over to the Palestinian Authority after the war?”
Netanyahu said, “The first thing we have to do is destroy Hamas because otherwise, they’ll do it again and again and again, and they’ve said so. We’ll destroy Hamas. The second thing we have to understand is there has to be an overriding and overreaching Israeli military envelope. We’ve seen, any place we leave, we exit, give it to some other force, very soon terrorism resurfaces.”
He continued, “The third thing we have to understand is a civilian authority has to cooperate on two goals: one is to demilitarize Gaza, the second is de-radicalize Gaza. The Palestinian Authority has unfortunately failed on both counts. They don’t demilitarize the West Bank. We have to do it. We have to fight the terrorists. They don’t de-radicalize. They teach children the hate red of Israel. They pay for slay. They pay for murder. The more Jews they kill, the more they pay. They refuse to this day, 36 days after this savagery, to condemn what Hamas did on October 7th.”
Netanyahu added, “There has to be a reconstructed civilian authority. There has to be something else. Otherwise, we’re just falling into that same rabbit hole. We’re going to have the same result.”
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