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Benjamin Netanyahu last month rejected a proposal to advance to the next stage of the Gaza ceasefire plan after Hamas said it had agreed to hand over its weapons. (EPA Images pic)
\nJERUSALEM: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday visited Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip, where he vowed not to pull back troops despite a recent push by mediators to advance a US-backed ceasefire plan calling for their withdrawal.<\/p>\n
It was the first time Netanyahu has visited the war-shattered territory since the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas came into effect in October 2025.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe control the area. We are not retreating. We are staying on this line,\u201d Netanyahu said near the so-called Yellow Line, which demarcates the areas under Hamas and Israeli military control.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe control 60% of the Strip, and we are not stopping, because we are eliminating the terrorists who threaten us, day in and day out.\u201d<\/p>\n
Israel has kept striking the Gaza Strip, and its forces have made further inroads despite the US-brokered ceasefire, insisting it must eliminate threats from Hamas, which led to the unprecedented Oct 7, 2023, attack against Israel.<\/p>\n
International appeals to move to the next stages of the US-led peace plan have not stopped Israel targeting Palestinians it says are militants.<\/p>\n
Netanyahu, facing tight elections in October, last month rejected a proposal for advancing to the next stage of the plan after Hamas said it had agreed to hand over its weapons.<\/p>\n
The Israeli premier has vowed no military pullout until the Palestinian Islamist movement is \u201cgenuinely\u201d disarmed.<\/p>\n
On Tuesday, Israel said its forces and a Palestinian anti-Hamas militia captured the head of Hamas\u2019s internal security apparatus during a ground operation in Gaza City that Palestinian health officials said killed four people.<\/p>\n
Hamas\u2019s interior ministry identified the man as\u00a0Muein al-Arabid and said he was an \u201cofficer in the internal security service\u201d, but did not mention whether he was its chief.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are doing everything to reach our goal \u2013 disarming Hamas and demilitarising Gaza. Gaza will no longer pose a threat to Israel,\u201d Netanyahu said Wednesday, adding that \u201cthere is still work left to complete \u2013 and we will complete it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Israel\u2019s defence minister on Wednesday said the country had plans to remove Palestinians from the Gaza Strip but was waiting for the US to figure out where to take them.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is no real solution for Gaza in the end without this migration,\u201d defence minister Israel Katz told a conference hosted by Israeli news site Ynet and newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth.<\/p>\n
The Israeli government \u201cis organised and prepared to get them out \u2013 by sea, by air, by every way possible,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Similar suggestions in the past that Gazans could be displaced from the territory entirely have drawn international outrage, as well as condemnation from Palestinians themselves.<\/p>\n
Announcing the Gaza war ceasefire in October, Trump laid out 20 points for the territory that included no forced displacement.<\/p>\n
Forced displacement of civilians in occupied territory is considered a war crime under the Geneva Conventions.<\/p>\n
Israeli operations in Gaza have killed at least 1,334 people since the ceasefire came into effect, according to the Palestinian territory\u2019s health ministry, which also operates under Hamas authority and whose figures are considered reliable by the UN.<\/p>\n
The Israeli army has reported five deaths in its ranks over the same period, as well as the death of one civilian contractor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Benjamin Netanyahu last month rejected a proposal to advance to the next stage of the Gaza ceasefire plan…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":211642,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[16469],"tags":[244,49275,94684,7238,48244,41544,50437,246,42669,82933],"class_list":["post-211641","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-benjamin-netanyahu","tag-benjamin-netanyahu","tag-gaza-ceasefire","tag-gaza-displacement","tag-gaza-strip","tag-hamas-disarmament","tag-israel-gaza-war","tag-israel-hamas","tag-israel-katz","tag-israeli-forces","tag-us-peace-plan"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@people\/117201957620423550","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211641","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=211641"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211641\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/211642"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=211641"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=211641"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=211641"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}