The White House has signaled its approval of earlier statements from Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu that Israel’s military forces will remain present within the Gaza Strip following its war with Hamas.
“I think all of us can foresee a period of time after the conflict is over where Israeli forces will likely still be in Gaza and will have some initial security responsibilities,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told CNN on Wednesday. “But for how long and where and to what size and scale and scope, I think it’s too soon to know,” Kirby said, noting that the Biden administration would view Israel reoccupying the territory as a “big mistake.”
“I think where we are is a lot of questions, and not a lot of answers,” the spokesman added. “We know what we don’t want to see in Gaza post-conflict, we don’t want to see Hamas in control, and we don’t want to see a reoccupation by Israel.”
Secretary of State Antony Blinken, participating at a G7 summit in Tokyo on Wednesday, echoed the sentiment: “We’re very clear on no reoccupation, just as we’re very clear on no displacement of the Palestinian population.”
The statement comes two days after Netanyahu acknowledged that an IDF presence would remain in the Gaza Strip “for an indefinite period” following its operation against Hamas. “I think Israel will, for an indefinite period, have security responsibility,” the prime minister told ABC News on Monday. “We’ve seen what happens 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 initially drew a tepid response from the White House, caught in the uncomfortable position of affirming Israel’s security concerns while opposing any talks of reoccupation or resettlement. President Biden views a “reoccupation by Israeli forces of Gaza is not the right thing to do,” Kirby told reporters at a press conference on Tuesday. “There needs to be a healthy set of conversations about what post-conflict Gaza looks like and what governance looks like,” the spokesperson added. “What we absolutely agree with our Israeli counterparts on is what it can’t look like, and it can’t look like it looked on October 6.”
Abdel Latif al-Qanou, a Hamas spokesman representing the Palestinian terrorist group, condemned the rhetoric. “What Kirby said about the future of Gaza after Hamas is a fantasy,” he wrote on the social-media platform Telegram. “Our people are symbiotic with the resistance, and only they will decide their future.”