A month into the war triggered by the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that the country would manage the "overall security responsibility" of Gaza for an indefinite period after the war.
In an interview with ABC News that aired Monday, Netanyahu said: "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." The comments come after US Pres. Joe Biden last month warned Israel against a full-scale occupation of Gaza, stating that doing so would be "a big mistake."
After Hamas' heinous attack on Israel, the country has a right and a duty to carry out this operation against Gaza — including taking control of the enclave's security for an indefinite period — to ensure such an attack on Israel does not take place again.
As Israel has done time again with the Palestinians, although it illegally occupies their land, it claims that it is in fact the victim. While Hamas' attacks were tragic, the decades of death and destruction imposed on Palestinians by Israel that incubated this violence cannot be ignored.