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A woman mourns the death of her husband in Kahn Younis, Gaza
January 4, 2024, 10:40 p.m. 03
Updated 6 hours ago
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant announced proposals for a future Gaza command once the war between Israel and Hamas ends.
There will, he said, be limited Palestinian rule in the area.
Hamas would no longer control Gaza and Israel would retain overall security control, he added.
Fighting continued in Gaza as the plan was published, with dozens of people killed in the last 24 hours, the Hamasrun health ministry said.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is expected to return to the region this week. He is expected to hold talks with Palestinian authorities in the occupied West Bank and with Israeli leaders.
This visit comes amid heightened tensions following the assassination of Hamas supreme leader Saleh alArouri on Tuesday in the Lebanese capital Beirut. The blame for his death was widely attributed to Israel, which neither confirmed nor denied involvement.
Under Galant's now “Four Corners” plan, Israel would retain overall control of Gaza's security.
A multinational force would be responsible for rebuilding the territory after widespread destruction caused by Israeli bombing.
Neighboring Egypt also plays an unspecified role in the plan.
However, the document adds that the Palestinians would be responsible for administering the territory.
“The residents of Gaza are Palestinians, so Palestinian entities will bear responsibility, provided that there are no hostile actions or threats against the State of Israel,” Gallant said.
Talks about the “day after” in Gaza have sparked deep disagreements in Israel.
Some farright members of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government have claimed that Palestinian citizens should be encouraged to leave the Gaza Strip into exile by reestablishing Jewish settlements in the area controversial proposals branded by Israel as “extremist” and “impractical”. were adopted by other countries in the region and by some of Israel's allies.
While Galant's proposals may be seen as more practical than those of some of his Cabinet colleagues, they are likely to be rejected by Palestinian leaders, who argue that Gazans themselves should take full control of the territory's administration once the war ends.
Netanyahu has not spoken publicly in detail about how he believes Gaza should be governed.
He suggested that the war in Gaza could last several months, with the stated goal of completely eradicating Hamas.
Galant's plan also outlined how the Israeli military plans to proceed in the next phase of the Gaza war.
Under this plan, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) would be more targeted in the northern Gaza Strip, carrying out attacks, tunnel destruction, and air and ground strikes.
In the south, the Israeli military will continue to try to locate Hamas leaders and free Israeli hostages, he said.
On Thursday, the IDF said it had attacked areas in the northern and southern Gaza Strip, including Gaza City and Khan Younis.
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Khan Younis, the largest city in the south of the Gaza Strip, was hit by Israeli airstrikes this Thursday
Israeli forces said they carried out attacks on “terrorist infrastructure” and killed people they described as militants who had tried to detonate an explosive near soldiers.
She also announced that she had killed a prominent Palestinian Islamic Jihad activist, Mamdouh Lolo, in an airstrike.
The Hamasrun health ministry in Gaza said 125 people had been killed in the region in the past 24 hours.
A health ministry official said 14 people including nine children were killed by Israeli airstrikes in alMawasi, west of Khan Younis.
The small town has been designated by the Israeli armed forces as a “safe space” for displaced Palestinians. The IDF has not commented on Hamas' allegations.
“We were sleeping at midnight when an attack hit the camp on the 4×2 tents where people were sleeping, most of them children,” eyewitness Jamal Hamad Salah told Portal. “We found a body that flew 40 meters.”
“There is no safe place in Gaza,” said Jason Lee, director of the aid group Save the Children, which provides aid in Palestinian territory. “Camps, shelters, schools, hospitals, homes and socalled 'safe zones' should not be battlefields.”
The total number of people killed in Gaza since Israel's retaliatory campaign began reached more than 22,400 on Thursday nearly 1% of the place's 2.3 million residents, the Hamasrun health ministry said.
Israel's offensive began after Hamas gunmen launched a surprise attack on southern Israel on October 7, killing 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking around 240 hostages.