The Israeli prime minister also predicted that the war in Gaza and other regional fronts would last for several months.
The border area between the Gaza Strip and Egypt should be under Israeli control, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, predicting that the war in the Palestinian enclave and other regional fronts would last for several months.
As Israel entered the 13th week of its Gaza war on Saturday, Netanyahu held a news conference in which he renewed his pledge to eliminate Hamas and bring home all Israelis held captive in Gaza.
“The Philadelphia corridor – or to put it more accurately, the southern stopping point (of Gaza) – must be in our hands. It needs to be closed. It is clear that any other arrangement would not guarantee the demilitarization we seek,” he said.
Israel has said it intends to destroy Hamas in Gaza and demilitarize the territory to prevent any repeat of the armed group’s October 7 wave of cross-border killings and kidnappings.
“The war is at its peak. We are fighting on all fronts. It will take time to achieve victory. As the chief of staff (of the Israeli army) said, the war will continue for many more months,” Netanyahu said.
He also added a rare threat to directly attack Iran due to near-daily exchanges of fire across the Israel-Lebanon border.
“If Hezbollah (the Lebanese armed group backed by Iran) expands the war, it will suffer blows it did not dream of – and so will Iran,” Netanyahu said without elaborating.
The war has raised fears of a regional conflagration amid growing tensions with other Iran-aligned groups in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen.
Israel’s relentless bombing and ground offensive on Gaza since October 7 has killed at least 21,672 people, mostly women and children, with thousands more buried under rubble.
The military operation also resulted in the displacement of almost all of the 2.3 million inhabitants of the besieged territory.
Around 1,140 people were killed by Hamas in Israel during the October 7 attacks.