WASHINGTON: Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ruled out a cease-fire in Gaza on Thursday, saying the military was performing “exceptionally well,” but insisted Israel does not plan to reoccupy the Palestinian territory.
“A ceasefire with Hamas means surrender,” he told Fox News, adding there was no “timetable” for the military offensive.
“I think the Israeli army is performing exceptionally well,” he added.
“However long it takes, we’ll do it.”
Israel has vowed to destroy Hamas after the militant group poured across the border from Gaza on October 7, killing 1,400 people, mostly civilians and taking around 240 people hostage, according to Israel.
The retaliatory aerial bombing and ground offensive has killed more than 10,800 people in Gaza, mostly civilians and many of them children, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.
Netanyahu said Israel has no plans to remain in Gaza longterm.
“We don’t seek to govern Gaza. We don’t seek to occupy it, but we seek to give it and us a better future,” he said, adding that Israel does not “seek to displace anyone.”
Pushed on his plan for Gaza’s future, he said the impoverished and blockaded territory must be “demilitarised, deradicalized and rebuilt.”
“We’ll have to find a government, a civilian government that will be there,” he added, without detailing who might form such a government.
And he said Israeli forces would have to remain ready to reenter Gaza and “kill the killers.”
“That’s what will prevent the reemergence of a Hamas-like entity.”
The October 7 attack and subsequent conflict came as Israel moved closer to a peace deal with Saudi Arabia, building on the so-called Abraham accords that normalized ties with several Arab countries.
Netanyahu insisted the conflict would not torpedo diplomatic momentum and that conditions would be “ripe” for negotiations to resume after Israel destroys Hamas.
“I think conditions will be ripe. In fact, after a victory, I think they’ll be even riper.”
Netanyahu rules out ceasefire, says no plans to occupy Gaza
https://arab.news/wcrqw
Netanyahu rules out ceasefire, says no plans to occupy Gaza
- “A ceasefire with Hamas means surrender,” Netanyahu tells Fox News
- Prime Minister says Israel has no plans to remain in Gaza longterm
The UN says Al-Hol camp population has dropped sharply as Syria moves to relocate remaining families
The UN says Al-Hol camp population has dropped sharply as Syria moves to relocate remaining families
- Forces of Syria’s central government captured the Al-Hol camp on Jan. 21 during a weekslong offensive against the SDF, which had been running the camp near the border with Iraq for a decade
DAMASCUS: The UN refugee agency said Sunday that a large number of residents of a camp housing family members of suspected Daesh group militants have left and the Syrian government plans to relocate those who remain.
Gonzalo Vargas Llosa, UNHCR’s representative in Syria, said in a statement that the agency “has observed a significant decrease in the number of residents in Al-Hol camp in recent weeks.”
“Syrian authorities have informed UNHCR of their plan to relocate the remaining families to Akhtarin camp in Aleppo Governorate (province) and have requested UNHCR’s support to assist the population in the new camp, which we stand ready to provide,” he said.
He added that UNHCR “will continue to support the return and reintegration of Syrians who have departed Al-Hol, as well as those who remain.”
The statement did not say how residents had left the camp or how many remain. Many families are believed to have escaped either during the chaos when government forces captured the camp from the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces last month or afterward.
There was no immediate statement from the Syrian government and a government spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.
At its peak after the defeat of IS in Syria in 2019, around 73,000 people were living at Al-Hol. Since then, the number has declined with some countries repatriating their citizens. The camp’s residents are mostly children and women, including many wives or widows of IS members.
The camp’s residents are not technically prisoners and most have not been accused of crimes, but they have been held in de facto detention at the heavily guarded facility.
Forces of Syria’s central government captured the Al-Hol camp on Jan. 21 during a weekslong offensive against the SDF, which had been running the camp near the border with Iraq for a decade. A ceasefire deal has since ended the fighting.
Separately, thousands of accused IS militants who were held in detention centers in northeastern Syria have been transferred to Iraq to stand trial under an agreement with the US
The US military said Friday that it had completed the transfer of more than 5,700 adult male IS suspects from detention facilities in Syria to Iraqi custody.
Iraq’s National Center for International Judicial Cooperation said a total of 5,704 suspects from 61 countries who were affiliated with IS — most of them Syrian and Iraqi — were transferred from prisons in Syria. They are now being interrogated in Iraq.
