Israel’s Defense Minister Israel Katzassured this Tuesday that Israel will not completely withdraw from the Gaza Strip and has pointed out the existence of plans to restore the presence of settlements in the Palestinian enclave, against the demands of the president of the United States, Donald Trumpand its plan for the future of this territory, endorsed by the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu. “With God’s help, when the time comes we will establish pioneer groups in northern Gazain the place where the evacuated settlements –in the 2005 Disconnection Plan–“, he said during an event to commemorate the establishment of another 1,200 homes in the Beit El settlement, in the West Bank.
“We will do it the right way, at the right time“, Katz has noted. “We are in a period of practical sovereignty. There are opportunities that have not existed for a long time,” he argued, before reiterating that the Israeli authorities will not completely abandon the Gaza Stripdespite the clauses of the United States proposal. “We are in the depths of Gaza and we will never leave Gaza. It won’t happen. We are there to defend ourselves and prevent what happened from happening again,” he explained, as reported by the Israeli newspaper ‘The Times of Israel’, in reference to the attacks of October 7, 2023, which left some 1,200 dead and nearly 250 kidnapped.
The ministry corrects the minister
However, Katz’s office has subsequently sent a statement in which it highlights that the minister’s words “were made only in a security context“. “The Government has no intention of establishing a settlement in the Gaza Strip“, he maintained. “The Minister of Defense emphasized the central principle of border protection in all contexts: the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) are the first and last line of defense for Israeli citizens and the State of Israel depends on them and the security forces for its defense,” he concluded.
Katz’s words have come just a few days after the Secretary General of the United Nations, António Guterresdescribed as “essential” to begin implementing the second phase of the United States proposal for the Strip and highlighted that the first, launched in October after a agreement between Israel and Hamasmust be “fully applied.”
Pending agreement
The pact reached in October led to a cease-firein force since October 10 (although marked by the almost daily bombings by Israel, which claims it is acting against “terrorists”), and the hostage delivery dead and alive by Hamas, except for one, whose body has not yet been found in the enclave. The second phase, which has not yet been launched, contemplates the creation of a temporary authority which will be headed by Trump and will have the task of supervising the situation, and in a international security force in which several countries are expected to participate, without for now there being concrete details about its composition and other points such as Israel’s military withdrawal process.
