Mohammad Sıo
23 February 2024•Update: 24 February 2024
RAMALLAH, Palestine
Palestine slammed on Friday Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's plan for the post-Gaza war as an official acknowledgment of reoccupying the enclave.
Netanyahu has proposed to the Cabinet a plan for unlimited complete Israeli security control over Gaza, and the closure of the UNRWA agency as part of his plan when the war on Gaza is over.
In a statement, the Palestinian Foreign Ministry strongly rejected "what the Israeli media referred to as Netanyahu's principles for the post war Gaza".
The statement deemed the principles "an official acknowledgment of reoccupying the Gaza Strip and imposing Israeli control over it".
The statement called Netanyahu's remarks a "plan to prolong the genocide war against the Palestinian people, and an attempt to gain more time to implement the displacement plan."
It also described them as "an overt maneuver obstructing the US and international efforts aimed at cease-fire and prisoners exchange agreements, resolving the conflict and establishing a Palestinian state."
Israel occupied the Gaza Strip in 1967, and in 2005 unilaterally withdrew from it in what became known as the "Disengagement Plan" which was put in action on Aug. 15, 2005 and involved the evacuation of all settlements and settlers from the enclave to Israeli territory.
Israel has pounded the Gaza Strip since an Oct. 7 cross-border attack by the Palestinian group Hamas. The ensuing Israeli war has killed more than 29,410 people and caused mass destruction and shortages of necessities. Nearly 70,000 people have been injured.
Around 1,200 Israelis are believed to have been killed in the Hamas attack while over 200 were taken back to Gaza as hostages.
The Israeli war on Gaza has pushed 85% of the territory's population into internal displacement amid acute shortages of food, clean water and medicine, while 60% of the enclave's infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed, according to the UN.
Israel stands accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice. An interim ruling in January ordered Tel Aviv to stop genocidal acts and take measures to guarantee that humanitarian assistance is provided to civilians in Gaza.
*Writing by Mohammad Sio
