Netanyahu says Israel does not want to rule Gaza or displace its population

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu publicly announced on Thursday that the Jewish state does not intend to rule the Gaza Strip or displace the Gazan population.

“We don’t seek to displace anyone,” Netanyahu said in a Fox News interview, likely a response to growing international fears that the Israeli military operation against the Hamas terror organization includes changing Gaza’s demographics.

The prime minister stressed that the Jewish state’s goal was to temporarily move Gazan civilians from the war zone in northern Gaza to relative safety in the southern part of the coastal enclave.

“What we’re trying to do is get the Gazans in the northern part of the Gaza Strip, where the fighting has taken place to move one to four miles south where we have established a safe zone,” Netanyahu stated.

“We want to see field hospitals. We’re encouraging and enabling humanitarian help to go there. That’s how we’re fighting this war,” added the Israeli premier.

Netanyahu also rejected theories that the Jewish state intends to rule and conquer the Gaza Strip once the Hamas regime has been dismantled. The densely populated Gaza Strip has a population of over two million.

“We don’t seek to conquer Gaza. We don’t seek to occupy Gaza. And we don’t seek to govern Gaza.” 

However, the Israeli leader recently signaled that the Jewish state would need to be in charge of Gaza’s overall security for the foreseeable future in order to prevent any future terror regime, such as Hamas from operating.

Netanyahu also responded to international criticism that humanitarian aid to Gaza has been too slow and insufficient.

“I hoped we could do it very fast, but we have battled conditions on the ground, the safety of our own forces, the hostages we want to get out and the humanitarian corridors we want to [operate], which, as I said, Hamas is preventing by using its own fire… preventing Palestinian civilians from leaving,” the prime minister said.

Hamas has systematically violated international law by using hospitals and ambulances as human shields for its terror operatives. Hamas' policy directly threatens the security of Gazan civilians who are in need of medical care. Israel is, therefore, looking into the possibility of establishing alternative medical centers for Gazans.

In 2005, the late Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon made a decision to uproot 8,000 Israeli residents from their communities in Gaza and unilaterally withdrew all Israeli forces from the coastal enclave.

While Sharon supported the expansion of Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria, internationally known as the West Bank, he concluded it was wise for the Jewish state to politically separate itself from the large and hostile Gazan population. Netanyahu, who served as Israel’s finance minister at the time, resigned from his position to protest against Israel's unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.

Netanyahu argued, like other critics, that Israel’s withdrawal would pave the path toward the establishment of a terror base next to Israel.

In 2007, Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip after violently ousting its political rival, Fatah.

Hamas quickly established a Jihadist state on Israel’s southern border and began firing an increasing number of rockets at Israeli border cities and villages.

Over time, Hamas' rocket range expanded and the terror group began targeting Tel Aviv and other central Israeli cities.