Netanyahu holding talks on ‘day after’ Gaza plans
The Security Cabinet and the War Cabinet are expected to discuss the day after on Tuesday.
By TOVAH LAZAROFF
He discussed the issue with the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee’s sub-group on intelligence and secret services on Monday, the details of which are confidential.
The Security Cabinet and the War Cabinet are expected to discuss the day after on Tuesday. Parliamentarians will also hold a conference to discuss day-after plans in the Knesset that same day.
According to KAN, the IDF has a first phase plan by which portions of Gaza where Hamas is no longer present will be governed by local Palestinians who would also help oversee humanitarian aid distribution.
It put forward the plan just as the IDF began to transition from a high-intensity to a low-intensity phase of its military campaign to destroy Hamas, which has forcibly ruled Gaza since 2007.
Netanyahu has been clear that Hamas can no longer be allowed to govern or even exist in Gaza and that Israel must maintain security control of the enclave.
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The United States wants to see the Palestinian Authority govern Gaza, while Israel has insisted that only a newly formed Palestinian government that does not support terror – such as the existing one – can rule the enclave.
“It is very important” for Israel to put forward its plan for the day after, Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee Chairman Yuli Edelstein (Likud) told The Jerusalem Post.
“If we do not come with plans of our own, then someone else, maybe the Americans, will come forward with their understanding of what should happen,” Edelstein said.
“I am not sure” that those proposals would “necessarily coincide with our views,” he said.
The Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee is the first forum in which the issue was raised, including talks with the National Security Council and Netanyahu, he said.
This was in the very early stages of the war, he added.
“The first time we mentioned the necessity to start discussing it was before there were boots on the ground in Gaza,” he said. There was also a discussion about it last week with the National Security Advisor Tzahi Hanegbi.Edelstein spoke globally about options that could be put in place, such as placing the Gulf states in charge of reconstruction.
But any possible scenario, including local Palestinian governance, can only occur if Hamas is truly ousted from Gaza, he said.
Any potential Hamas replacement would have to believe that the terror group has left the enclave and would not be revived, he explained.
“We have to be accurate and persistent here because we can not let Hamas infiltrate this new structure in any way,” Edelstein said.
Content retrieved from: https://www.jpost.com/israel-hamas-war/article-780376.