|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
The Biden administration has called on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to clarify remarks he made last week on ABC News that Israel will maintain “full security responsibility” over the Gaza Strip “for an indefinite period” after the war.
The Prime Minister emphasized the need to defend against terrorism in the region and to prevent the resurgence of terrorist forces committed to Israel’s destruction.
However, as reported by Kan, US officials have asked the Israeli government for clarification of these remarks, presumably fearing a “reoccupation” of Gaza’s population.
The United States and other nations have expressed a desire to allow the Palestinian Authority to run Gaza following the current war between Hamas and Israel.
Although the PA is seen abroad as being less radical than Hamas, Mahmoud Abbas has failed to condemn the October 7th massacre.
Netanyahu has also been highly critical of the Palestinian Authority, and in an address on Sunday, indicated that Gaza cannot be run by an authority that “educates its children to hate Israel…that pays the families of murders amounts based on the number they murdered.”
Even as Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and Prime Minister of France Emmanuel Macron criticized Israel for the number of civilian deaths, Netanyahu reiterated the goal of the war, “Hamas will be demilitarized; there will be no further threat from the Gaza Strip on Israel, and to ensure that, for all long as necessary, IDF will control Gaza security to prevent terror from there.”
The Palestinian Authority currently administers roughly 40% of Judea and Samaria. Although Israel recognized the Palestinian Authority with the Oslo Accords in 1993, the PA has been plagued with corruption, and leader Mahmoud Abbas has suffered from widespread criticism and declining popularity even before the current conflict between Israel and Hamas.
