The Israeli prime minister also predicts that the war in Gaza and on other regional fronts will last many months.
The border zone between the Gaza Strip and Egypt should be under Israeli control, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, as he predicted the war in the Palestinian enclave and on other regional fronts would last many months.
As Israel entered the 13th week of its war in Gaza on Saturday, Netanyahu held a news conference where he renewed his promise to eliminate Hamas and bring home all Israelis trapped in Gaza.
“The Philadelphia Corridor – or more specifically, the Southern Stop [of Gaza] – must be in our hands. It must be closed. It is clear that any other agreement would not ensure the demilitarization we seek,” he said.
Israel has said it intends to destroy Hamas in Gaza and demilitarize the area to prevent a repeat of the armed group's October 7 cross-border killing and kidnapping spree.
“The war is at its peak. We are fighting on all fronts. Victory will take time. As the [Israeli army] “The chief of staff said the war will continue for many months,” Netanyahu said.
He also added a rare threat to attack Iran directly amid almost daily exchanges of fire on the Israel-Lebanon border.
“If [the Iran-backed Lebanese armed group] “Hezbollah is expanding the war, it will suffer blows that it never dared to dream of – and so will Iran,” Netanyahu said, without elaborating.
The war has sparked fears of a regional conflagration as tensions rise with other Iran-aligned groups in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen.
Israel's relentless bombing and ground offensives on Gaza since October 7 have killed at least 21,672 people, most of them women and children, and thousands more are buried under the rubble.
The military operation has also displaced almost the entire 2.3 million population of the besieged area.
About 1,140 people were killed by Hamas in Israel in the October 7 attacks.