Israel does not intend to occupy Gaza after troops oust Hamas from the enclave, it emerged on Friday, as troops and tanks prepared for a ground invasion.
Israel plans to instead transfer control to the Palestinian Authority, officials have said.
This week, Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, told both Rishi Sunak and Joe Biden that Israel did not want to control the besieged strip following an expected ground offensive to wipe out Hamas’s leadership and infrastructure.
Israel wants to end its responsibility for the densely populated strip of 2.4 million people and create what it calls “a new security reality in the region”.
It came as soldiers, tanks and armoured vehicles lined up on the border ready for a ground invasion.
The battle to flush out Hamas from the Strip is likely to be fraught, with guerilla threats from air, ground and tunnels.
Mr Sunak and Mr Biden both used their visits this week to question Mr Netanyahu on what he had planned for the aftermath of a looming ground offensive.
Mr Biden is understood to have also urged Israel to use caution when any push begins, to stop the war escalating into a region-wide conflict.
Israel has vowed to wipe Hamas out in Gaza, after gunmen stormed into Israel on Oct 7 and killed some 1,400 Israelis.
A Whitehall source familiar with the discussions on the future of the enclave said Israel had made clear to the UK “from the get go” that it did not want to control Gaza afterwards.
The source said: “[The Israelis] don’t want Gaza back or to run it. They also don’t want Hamas to either.”
Officials have said the most likely option is instead a return of the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority.
Michael Oren, a former ambassador to Washington for Mr Netanyahu, told Bloomberg that Washington was also expected to push the idea of bringing Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority president, into Gaza and reviving efforts for a two-state solution.
Yair Lapid, the Israeli opposition leader, said he too believed the best solution for a post-Hamas Gaza would be returning the enclave to the authority.
“I think in the end the best thing is that the Palestinian Authority goes back into Gaza,” he told the Times of Israel.
“It’s not ideal, and if you ask me what the exit strategy should be, it should be helping the international community help [the Palestinian Authority take control],” he added. “This is the way things were before.”
The Palestinian Authority governed the Gaza Strip from 1994 until 2006, when it was ousted by Hamas. The authority is now based in the West Bank city of Ramallah, but a reputation for weakness and corruption has seen its standing badly damaged.
Many Palestinians also accuse the authority of collaborating with Israel. Any impression the authority was being imposed on Gazans by Israel could further weaken its credibility, analysts said.
Israel’s defence minister this week put troops on alert for a ground assault, saying they would soon see Gaza “from inside”. Yoav Gallant on Friday told a parliamentary briefing that Israel’s objectives in its Gaza campaign included an end to responsibility over the coastal enclave.
A statement from his office said the aim was “the complete removal of Israeli responsibility from the Gaza Strip and the creation of a new security reality in the region”.
Part of that would be a “no man’s land” around Gaza to protect Israel from future terror attacks, predicted Yaakov Amidror, a former major general in the Israeli army. “I don’t know if it will be a half kilometre or 1.5km,” he said, referring to the buffer zone.
Mr Amidror, who led Israel’s National Security Council from May 2011 to November 2013, added: “No one will enter, and anyone who will, will be shot.”
He said Israel would “disconnect itself” from Gaza and stop its humanitarian aid to the region. It would have to get aid from Egypt instead.
Washington has been urging Israel to hold off on a ground offensive, not only to ease regional tensions but also to give more time to try to secure hostages seized by Hamas.
More than a dozen US nationals and 10 Britons are among around 200 captives taken by Hamas during the Oct 7 attacks.
However, a member of Israel’s security cabinet said its military had a “green light” to move into Gaza whenever it was ready.
Any escalation of military activities would be “catastrophic” for people in the Gaza Strip, the UN high commissioner for refugees has warned.
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Israel to 'hand control of Gaza back to Palestinian Authority' once Hamas wiped out - The Telegraph
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