WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s priorities in the Gaza Strip are to remove Hamas from power, free the hostages, and deliver aid, Tommy Pigott, a State Department spokesman, said Thursday.
Israel intends to take temporary military control of all of the Gaza Strip territory to remove Hamas, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Fox News on Thursday morning.
“We don’t want to keep it,” Netanyahu said. “We want to have a security perimeter, we want to hand it over to Arab forces that will govern it properly without threatening us.”
Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, who opposes the plan, said he will continue to express his position without fear, according to the Jerusalem Post.
“Our intention is to defeat Hamas and continue to operate with our hostages at the forefront of our minds,” Zamir said. “We will do everything in our power to bring them home.”
Hamas released a statement saying Netanyahu’s “approach of genocide and displacement” would “represent a clear reversal of the course of negotiations” and ”reveal the true motives behind his withdrawal from the final round” of talks, the BBC reported.
Yehuda Cohen’s 19-year-old son, Nimrod Cohen, is an Israeli soldier who Hamas took hostage during the attack that started the war on Oct. 7, 2023.
“We want it all to stop. We want the world to help us make Netanyahu stop it,” Cohen told CNN. “We want to end the war and get a hostage deal.”
The Times of Israel reported anti-war rallies continued nationwide, as the security cabinet met in Jerusalem.
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