• Netanyahu vows to retain control during visit to besieged Palestinian enclave
• Defence minister says plans underway to remove Palestinians; urges US to find destination for the displaced
JERUSALEM: Israeli leaders on Wednesday signalled a permanent occupation of Gaza, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowing a lasting military grip and Defence Minister Israel Katz threatening the forced displacement of the territory’s Palestinian population.
Making his first visit to Gaza since the ceasefire began, Netanyahu made it clear a troop withdrawal is not on the table.
“We control the area. We are not retreating. We are staying on this line,” Netanyahu said near the so-called Yellow Line, which demarcates areas under Hamas and Israeli military control.
“We control 60pc of the strip, and we are not stopping, because we are eliminating the terrorists who threaten us, day in and day out.”
Despite the US-brokered ceasefire, Israel continues striking Gaza and making further inroads, insisting it must eliminate Hamas. International appeals to advance the US-led peace plan have not stopped Israel from targeting Palestinians.
Facing tight elections in October, Netanyahu rejected a proposal last month to advance the plan after Hamas agreed to hand over its weapons. The Israeli premier has vowed no military pullout until the group is genuinely disarmed.
“We are doing everything to reach our goal: disarming Hamas and demilitarising Gaza. Gaza will no longer pose a threat to Israel,” Netanyahu said Wednesday. “There is still work left to complete, and we will complete it.”
Ready to remove Palestinians
Meanwhile, Defence Minister Israel Katz said the country had plans to remove Palestinians from the Gaza Strip but was waiting for the United States to figure out where to take them.
“There is no real solution for Gaza in the end without this migration,” Katz told a conference hosted by the Israeli news site Ynet and the newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth.
The Israeli government “is organised and prepared to get them out by sea, by air, and by every way possible,” he said. The US Embassy referred requests for comment to the State Department in Washington.
At the start of his second term, US President Donald Trump stunned the world by calling for all 2 million Palestinians to leave Gaza, suggesting the Mediterranean territory be developed into a luxury resort.
He walked back the idea following pushback from Egypt, the only country besides Israel bordering Gaza.
Trump’s 20-point October ceasefire plan explicitly included no forced displacement. However, Katz claimed that Trump had only frozen the idea as he looks for host countries, adding that Egypt is not an option. “The plan hasn’t been cancelled; it is being discussed all the time, even now, and I think there is no other solution for everyone’s good,” Katz said. “But for it to happen, we need the US. When will we get their approval? Whenever it becomes clear that Hamas is not meeting its obligations.”
Katz claimed, without citing a source, that 80 per cent of people in Gaza wanted to leave but that Hamas was preventing them.
Similar suggestions that Gazans could be displaced have drawn international outrage. The proposal was condemned by Palestinians themselves, for whom any effort to force them off their land recalls the “Nakba”, or catastrophe — their mass displacement during Israel’s creation in 1948.
Forced displacement in occupied territory is a war crime under the Geneva Conventions. The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Katz’s predecessor, Yoav Gallant, over alleged war crimes, which Israel and the US deny.
On Tuesday, Israel said its forces captured the head of Hamas’s internal security apparatus during a Gaza City ground operation that Palestinian health officials said killed four people.
Hamas identified the man as Muein al-Arabid, an officer in the internal security service.
Israeli operations in Gaza have killed at least 1,334 people since the ceasefire took effect, according to the Palestinian territory’s health ministry. Overall, Israel’s offensive has claimed 73,470 lives in Gaza. The Israeli military has reported five deaths in its ranks.
Published in Dawn, September 3rd, 2026
