Israel’s Netanyahu signals ‘intense’ stage of Gaza fighting close to end

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu signaled that the “intense” phase of fighting in the war-torn Gaza enclosure is close to ending, while stressing the broader war against Hamas wages on.

In a rare live interview with an Israeli news outlet, Netanyahu told Channel 14 that the Jewish state would be able to shift more of its troops near the northern border with Lebanon, where hostilities against the Iran-backed Hezbollah have surged over the past two weeks.

“After the intense phase is finished, we will have the possibility to move part of the forces north. And we will do this. First and foremost for defensive purposes. And secondly, to bring our [evacuated] residents home,” Netanyahu said, according to a Reuters translation.

“If we can, we will do this diplomatically. If not, we will do it another way. But we will bring [the residents] home.”

Thousands of Israeli and Lebanese civilians have been displaced from their border-facing settlements amid fire exchanged since the October start of the Jewish state’s war campaign against Palestinian militant group Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Hezbollah claim solidarity with the Palestinian plight and have intensified bombardment since the Israeli Defense Forces on June 12 reported killing a senior commander of the Lebanese faction.

Asked when the intense stage of combat against Hamas will finalize, Netanyahu on Sunday said, “Very soon,” according to a Google translation of the Channel 14 report.

He did not provide an explicit timeline, stressing that the Israeli military will not “stop in the middle” of its campaign in Rafah, which had offered refuge to over half of the 2.3 million Palestinian people of the Gaza enclave prior to last month.

Once more broaching the topic of a “day after” the Gaza conflict, Netanyahu underlined that Israel must first eliminate Hamas capabilities, allowing an IDF assumption of military control in the Gaza enclave and the “establishment of a government in the strip under the management of moderate countries in the region.” This would effectively eliminate the possibility of creating a separate, independent Palestinian state — which several Western states support, but Netanyahu has vocally opposed so far — or the transfer of regional governance to the Palestinian Authority, which oversees most Palestinian people in the occupied West Bank.

“I think that military control is needed in the Strip, and it is not realistic to settle in the Strip,” the Israeli prime minister said, in a likely blow to a share of his right-wing support-base…