KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israel will take “overall security responsibility” in Gaza indefinitely after its war with Hamas, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, the clearest indication yet that Israel plans to maintain control there one month into a conflict that has claimed thousands of lives and leveled swaths of the territory.
In an interview with ABC News that aired late Monday, Netanyahu expressed openness to “little pauses” in the fighting to facilitate delivery of aid to Gaza or the release of some of the more than 240 hostages seized by Hamas in its Oct. 7 attack into Israel that triggered the war.
But he ruled out any general cease-fire without the release of all the hostages. The White House said there was no agreement on U.S. President Joe Biden’s call for a broader humanitarian pause after a phone call between the leaders.
The war has already come at a staggering cost, and Israel unleashed another wave of strikes across the territory Tuesday. Entire city blocks have been reduced to rubble, and around 70% of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have fled their homes, with many heeding Israeli orders to head to the southern part of the besieged territory, which is also being bombed.
BY NAJIB JOBAIN AND SAMY MAGDY
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