Israel’s security cabinet voted Thursday to approve a plan to reoccupy the Gaza Strip militarily, starting with Gaza City, the most populous area and the last refuge of Hamas, where it is also holding Israeli hostages.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office issued a statement (translated from Hebrew by the Government Press Office):
The Security Cabinet has approved the Prime Minister’s proposal for defeating Hamas.
The IDF will prepare for taking control of Gaza City while distributing humanitarian assistance to the civilian population outside the combat zones.
The Security Cabinet – by majority vote – adopted the five principles for concluding the war:
1. The disarming of Hamas.
2. The return of all the hostages – the living and the deceased.
3. The demilitarization of the Gaza Strip.
4. Israeli security control in the Gaza Strip.
5. The establishment of an alternative civil administration that is neither Hamas nor the Palestinian Authority.
Netanyahu told Fox News on Thursday (via Times of Israel) that after reoccupation, Gaza would eventually be handed over to Arab leadership — other than the terrorist Hamas or the corrupt Palestinian Authority.
President Donald Trump has appeared to give the plan a green light, after losing confidence in Hamas at the negotiating table.
There are still 50 Israeli hostages in Gaza, some twenty of whom are thought to be alive.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of Trump 2.0: The Most Dramatic ‘First 100 Days’ in Presidential History, available for Amazon Kindle. He is also the author of The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency, now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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