Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed Monday that Israel will take control of “overall security” of besieged Gaza after the war, as the Hamas-run health ministry said the death toll has surged past 10,000.
Resisting calls for a ceasefire, Netanyahu said there would be no letup in the war to destroy Hamas, whose October 7 attack left 1,400 dead in Israel, most of them civilians.The Palestinian militant group also took more than 240 people hostage, including children and elderly people, in an attack that prompted Israel’s massive bombardment of Gaza and an intensifying ground offensive.
One month since the war began, the Hamas-run health ministry said the death toll in Gaza had surpassed 10,000 people — more than 4,000 of them children.
With international criticism of Israel’s conduct of the war mounting, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Gaza was becoming a “graveyard for children”.
More than 1.5 million people in densely packed Gaza have fled their homes for other parts of the territory in a desperate search for cover, with critical aid only trickling in.
But Netanyahu told ABC News the war would continue until Israel had restored “overall security” control of Gaza.
“Israel will, for an indefinite period, will have the overall security responsibility,” he said.
“When we don’t have that security responsibility, what we have is the eruption of Hamas terror on a scale that we couldn’t imagine.”
Netanyahu’s comments came after the White House said the Israeli leader had discussed potential “tactical pauses” in a phone call with US President Joe Biden on Monday.
But no agreements were announced and the pair did not broach the possibility of a ceasefire.
