Speaking to the Knesset plenum about phase 2 of the Gaza peace plan, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vows that Turkish and Qatari soldiers “will not be in the Strip.”
However, Türkiye and Qatar will sit on the influential Gaza Executive Board, the White House announced over the weekend.
“We have a certain argument with our friends in the US on the makeup of the council of advisers that will accompany the processes in Gaza,” he says, likely referring to the Executive Board.
Netanyahu asserts that Qatar and Türkiye “are barely members of an advisory committee of one of the three commissions, in which they don’t have any authority or any influence or any soldiers.”
He says he doesn’t know whether Trump’s Board of Peace is a new United Nations, and adds that Trump invited him to join: “It’s one body, but there are all sorts of bodies.”
Netanyahu boasts that he is willing to stand up to the US when there are disagreements over core issues. He stresses that occasional disagreements don’t hurt ties with US President Donald Trump, “our greatest friend in the White House.”
Netanyahu says the IDF is currently holding on to 53 percent of Gaza from a “position of strength.”
“What is phase 2?” he asks rhetorically. “Phase 2 says something simple — Hamas will be disarmed, and Gaza will be demilitarized.”
“We are sticking to those goals, and they will be achieved,” he pledges, “either the easy way, or the hard way.”
He says that no one needs to remind him of the importance of bringing back the body of Master Sgt. Ran Gvili, the last slain hostage in Gaza. “He remains at the top of our priorities, and the less we talk about it, the better.”
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