Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has declared Israel will reoccupy Gaza at the end of the current stage of the Israel War.

The prime minister told ABC News: “Israel will—for an indefinite period—will have the overall security responsibility because we’ve seen what happens when we don’t have it. When we don’t have that security responsibility, what we have is the eruption of Hamas terror on a scale that we couldn’t imagine.”

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who was in Tokyo, told reporters it is “clear that Israel cannot occupy Gaza.”

He continued: “It is imperative that the Palestinian people be central to governance in Gaza and in the West Bank as well, and that, again, we don’t see a reoccupation.”

Several diplomats from Western countries that have backed Israel in its war in Gaza have spoken out against rebuilding settlements in the Gaza Strip, which Haaretz noted were dismantled in 2005.

The Israeli Haaretz report noted that it is not just Netanyahu declaring Israel’s takeover of Gaza, it will be another land grab in the name of “settlements.”

Amichai Eliyahu, Israel’s Jerusalem Affairs and Heritage Minister who said in an interview that a nuclear strike is an option for Gaza since there are no innocent civilians, also said Israeli settlements in Gaza should be reestablished after the war ends.

One of the diplomats told Haaretz that it appears Netanyahu is afraid to engage in a disagreement with his coalition, but if the trend continues, the diplomat’s country would be forced to be more assertive in its criticisms.

TRENDPOST: When asked about Israel’s plans, John Kirby, the National Security Council spokesman, told reporters, that the U.S. has been in discussions with Israel about the post-war region and said Biden “maintains his position that reoccupation by Israeli forces is not the right thing to do.”

Regardless of what America says, Netanyahu told the mayors of border towns at IDF headquarters in Tel Aviv that “IDF forces will remain in control of the Strip, we will not give it to international forces,” The Times of Israel reported.

Days earlier, Secretary of State Antony Blinken called for a united and Palestinian-led government for both Gaza and the West Bank after the war, the Associated Press reported. Any postwar governing plan for Gaza “must include Palestinian-led governance and Gaza unified with the West Bank under the Palestinian Authority,” he said. 

The Palestinian Authority said it would be open to a role in post-war Gaza if the U.S. agrees to a full-fledged two-state solution, The New York Times reported.

Palestinian leaders were looking for “a serious American initiative that would force Israel to abide by it, to commit to it,” Hussein al-Sheikh, the P.L.O.’s secretary general, told the paper.

He said, “This current U.S. administration is capable of doing that.”

TREND FORECAST: The idea that Israel will take over the role of providing security to the very same people that it attacked for weeks with 2,000-pound bombs seems like a dark sense of humor. Netanyahu and his hardline government have made life for the average Gazan a living hell and the idea that somehow vengeful bombs will evolve into responsible policing is ignorant to the facts. (See “JEWISH SETTLER (ILLEGAL OCCUPIERS) VIOLENCE SKYROCKETS IN WEST BANK AND NOBODY CARES” 7 Nov 2023, “BIDEN SAYS ISRAELI SETTLER ATTACKS IN OCCUPIED WEST BANK HAVE TO STOP, BUT DOES NOTHING TO STOP THEM” 31 Oct 2023, “HUNGER STRIKER DEATH SPARKS ROCKET EXCHANGE BETWEEN PALESTINE AND ISRAEL” 9 May 2023, “ISRAEL KILLS 3 MORE PALESTINIANS DURING ANOTHER DEADLY WEEK” 14 Mar 2023, and “DOES ISRAEL SEEK A ‘FINAL SOLUTION FOR PALESTINIANS?’” 14 Feb 2023.)

We also reported last week that there was a leaked intel document that showed a new “settlement” push amid the war. (See “LEAKED ISRAELI INTEL: NEW ‘SETTLEMENT’, PUSH PALESTINIANS FROM OUT OF GAZA,” 7 Nov 2023.)

The Times of Israel, citing a report by Sicha Mekomit, reported that the document was dated 13 October and envisioned Palestinians being moved to a tent city in the northern reaches of Sinai. The idea would be to build a permanent city with a humanitarian corridor.