GAZA,(Palestine Foundation Information Center) The Hamas Movement has denounced Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s recent remarks about occupying Gaza, describing them as a blatant coup against the negotiation process, driven by his personal ambitions and ideological agenda.
In an official statement issued Thursday evening, Hamas said:
“What the war criminal Netanyahu is planning constitutes a continuation of the policies of genocide and forced displacement by committing further crimes against our Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip.”
Hamas added that Netanyahu’s statements to Fox News “represent a clear reversal of the negotiations path and explicitly reveal the real motives behind his withdrawal from the latest round of talks, despite the parties being close to reaching a final agreement.”
The Movement stressed that “Netanyahu’s plans to expand the aggression leave no doubt that he is seeking to get rid of the prisoners in Gaza and sacrifice them to serve his own interests and extremist ideological agenda.”
“Gaza will remain unbreakable in the face of occupation and attempts to impose guardianship over it. Expanding the aggression against our people will not be a walk in the park; its cost will be high and painful for the occupation and its Nazi army.”
The Movement called on Arab and Islamic countries, as well as the international community, to “condemn and reject these dangerous statements, to take immediate action to stop the aggression, end the occupation, and enable our people to exercise their right to self-determination. The leaders of the Zionist enemy must be held accountable for their ongoing crimes against our people in the Gaza Strip.”
In a recent interview with Fox News, aired shortly before Israel’s security cabinet was set to vote on a full re-occupation of Gaza, Netanyahu was asked whether Israel plans to take full control of the Strip. He responded: “We intend to do that.”
The Israeli Prime Minister added that Israel aims to “eliminate Hamas” in Gaza, after which it would hand over the territory to a “civil administration, not Hamas, and not anyone who calls for the destruction of Israel.”
Netanyahu continued: “That’s what we want to do. We want to free ourselves and the people of Gaza from the horrific terror of Hamas.”
However, he did not specify who might govern Gaza after the war, nor has Israel presented any such plan.
Israel’s ongoing genocidal war on the Gaza Strip has now entered its 23rd consecutive month, amid a relentless escalation of massacres against civilians, most of them women and children, and the continuation of a suffocating siege that has led to a catastrophic deterioration of humanitarian conditions in the besieged enclave.
