Gaza: Hamas assures that Netanyahu's post-war plan "will never succeed"

Europe 1 with AFP // Photo credit: AFP 8:39 p.m., February 23, 2024

A Hamas official said Friday that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's post-war Gaza plan "will never succeed" during a press conference in Beirut.

“As for the day after in the Gaza Strip, Netanyahu is presenting ideas that he knows very well will never succeed,” Osama Hamdan said.

“This plan will not come true” 

The document, which Benjamin Netanyahu submitted Thursday evening to the government security cabinet and which AFP was able to consult on Friday, recalls in the preamble the objectives of the army in Gaza: dismantling of Hamas and Islamic Jihad and release of all hostages still held.

The Israeli army "will exercise security control over the entire area west of Jordan, including the Gaza Strip" and "to prevent the strengthening of terrorist elements there" and stem "threats against Israel", underlines the document.

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Israel will retain "its freedom of operational action throughout the Gaza Strip, without time limit," the document continues.

“This plan will not become reality (...) because the reality of Gaza and the reality of the Palestinians can only be determined by the Palestinians themselves,” declared Osama Hadmane.

Benjamin Netanyahu "absolutely refuses to recognize a Palestinian state (...) This raises the question (of knowing) whether he and others like him are qualified for political discussions with the Palestinians", he added.

The war between Israel and Hamas was sparked by an unprecedented attack by the Islamist movement in southern Israel on October 7 that resulted in the deaths of around 1,160 people, most of them civilians.

The Israeli retaliatory offensive has so far killed more than 29,500 people, mostly civilians, in Gaza.