Far-right Minister: Israel 'should fully occupy the Gaza Strip'

Israeli Minister of Heritage, Amichai Eliyahu, claimed today that Israel “should fully occupy the Gaza Strip.”

“Anyone who is today selling the idea that the Palestinians can go back to running things doesn’t remember what happened on October 7,” the far-right Minister from the extremist Otzma Yehudit party told Kan public radio.

While Israel has been bombing Gaza since 7 October, killing more than 18,700 Palestinians, Israel has insisted that it will retain security control over Gaza to ensure there is no repeat of the Hamas attack that killed more than 1,200 Israelis and foreigners and led to some 240 being taken into captivity in Gaza.

Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has also said Israel would not allow Gaza to be run by the Palestinian Authority, saying Israel differed from Washington on the issue of how to manage the “day after Hamas”.

Moreover, during his interview with Kan public radio, Eliyahu did not specify his vision for Israeli governance in Gaza. When the interviewer inquired whether Israeli authorities should be responsible for civil affairs and related matters, he refrained from providing a direct answer, emphasising only that the Palestinians lack the capability to manage such affairs.

He added that he wanted “to re-establish settlements” in the Strip, but acknowledged that “this isn’t necessarily the time for that.”

Eliyahu’s controversial comments come after he made headlines last month for being suspended by Netanyahu after suggesting that the Occupation State should drop a nuclear bomb over the Gaza Strip, which is already facing a genocidal onslaught.

Israel’s genocidal bombing campaign in Gaza since 7 October has killed more than 18,200 Palestinians, the majority children, while over 51,000 have been injured.

Thousands more are trapped beneath the rubble, unable to escape or be rescued as rescue operations have been hindered by the bombing campaigns and the lack of fuel which Israel has banned from entering the Strip.

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