Standing amid the ruins of Gaza and flanked by Israeli troops, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivered a blunt message today: Israel will not pull its forces back, even as mediators press for movement on a US-backed ceasefire plan that calls for withdrawal.
The trip marked Mr Netanyahu’s first visit to the war-shattered territory since the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas took effect in October 2025.
“We control the area. We are not retreating. We are staying on this line,” Mr Netanyahu said near the so-called Yellow Line, which demarcates the areas under Hamas and Israeli military control.
“We control 60% 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 has continued to strike the Gaza Strip and its forces have pushed deeper into parts of the enclave, arguing it must remove threats from Hamas after the group’s unprecedented 7 October 2023 attack against Israel.
International calls to proceed to the next stages of the US-led plan have not halted Israeli operations targeting Palestinians Israel says are militants.
‘Doing everything to reach our goal’
With elections looming in October, Mr Netanyahu last month turned aside a proposal to advance to the next stage of the plan after Hamas said it had agreed to hand over its weapons.
He has insisted there will be no military pullout until the Palestinian Islamist movement is “genuinely” disarmed.
Yesterday, Israel said its forces, working alongside a Palestinian anti-Hamas militia, captured the head of Hamas’s internal security apparatus during a ground operation in Gaza City — an operation that Palestinian health officials said killed four people.
Israeli strikes on Gaza killed four Palestinians, including two children
Hamas’s Interior Ministry identified the man as Muein al-Arabid, and said he was an “officer in the internal security service”, but did not mention whether he was its chief.
“We are doing everything to reach our goal – disarming Hamas and demilitarising Gaza. Gaza will no longer pose a threat to Israel,” Mr Netanyahu said, adding that “there is still work left to complete – and we will complete it”.
‘No solution for Gaza without this migration’
Israel’s defence minister said today that 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,” Defence Minister Israel Katz told a conference hosted by Israeli news site Ynet and newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth.
The Israeli government “is organised and prepared to get them out – by sea, by air, by every way possible”, he said.
Similar suggestions in the past that Gazans could be displaced from the territory entirely have drawn international outrage, as well as condemnation from Palestinians themselves.
Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said that the country had plans to remove Palestinians from the Gaza Strip
Announcing the Gaza war ceasefire in October, Mr Trump laid out 20 points for the territory that included no forced displacement.
Forced displacement of civilians in occupied territory is considered a war crime under the Geneva Conventions.
Israeli operations in Gaza have killed at least 1,334 people since the ceasefire came into effect, according to the Palestinian territory’s health ministry, which also operates under Hamas authority and whose figures are considered reliable by the United Nations.
The Israeli army has reported five deaths in its ranks over the same period, as well as the death of one civilian contractor.
