Western Daily Press (Saturday)
Israel ‘does not plan to control life in Gaza’
ISRAEL has said it does not plan to take long-term control over the Gaza Strip after an expected ground offensive to root out Hamas militants that rule the territory.
The Israeli military punished Gaza with air strikes, and authorities inched closer to bringing aid to desperate families and hospitals, as people across Muslim countries protested in solidarity with Palestinians.
Israel bombed areas in southern Gaza where Palestinians had been told to seek safety while it aims to destroy Hamas in retaliation for its brutal rampage in Israel two weeks ago.
Fighting between Israel and militants in neighbouring Lebanon also raged, prompting evacuations of Israeli border towns as fears of a widening conflict grew.
Speaking to legislators about Israel’s long-term plans for the Gaza Strip, defence minister Yoav Gallant laid out a three-stage plan that seemed to suggest Israel did not intend to reoccupy the territory it left in 2005.
First, Israeli air strikes and “manoeuvring” - a presumed reference to a ground attack - would aim to root out Hamas.
Next will come a lower intensity fight to defeat remaining pockets of resistance, and finally, “the removal of Israel’s responsibility for life in the Gaza Strip”.
Mr Gallant did not say who Israel expected to run the territory if Hamas is toppled.
Israel occupied Gaza from 1967 until 2005, when it pulled up settlements and withdrew soldiers.
Two years later, Hamas took over. Some Israelis blame the withdrawal from Gaza for the sporadic violence that has persisted since then.
As the humanitarian crisis worsened for Gaza’s 2.3 million civilians, workers along its border with Egypt began work to repair the border crossing in a first step to getting aid to besieged Palestinians, who were running out of fuel, food, water and medicine.
More than a million people have been displaced in Gaza. Many heeded Israel’s orders to evacuate the northern part of the sealed-off enclave on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea.
Though Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called areas in southern Gaza “safe zones” earlier this week, Israeli military spokesman Nir Dinar said yesterday: “There are no safe zones.”
UN officials said that with the bombings across all of Gaza, some Palestinians who had fled the north appeared to be going back.
“The strikes, coupled with extremely difficult living conditions in the south, appear to have pushed some to return to the north, despite the continuing heavy bombing there,” said Ravina Shamdasani, spokeswoman for the UN human rights office.
Gaza’s overwhelmed hospitals were rationing their dwindling resources as authorities worked out logistics for a desperately needed aid delivery from Egypt.
Generators in Shifa Hospital, Gaza’s largest, were operating at the lowest setting to conserve fuel while providing power to vital departments such as intensive care, hospital director Mohammed Abu Selmia said. Others worked in darkness.
The Gaza Health Ministry said 4,137 people have been killed in the territory since the war began.
More than 1,400 people in Israel have been killed, mostly civilians.