RAFAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday he has told the United States that he opposes the establishment of a Palestinian state as part of any postwar scenario, underscoring the deep divisions between the close allies three months into Israel’s assault on Gaza aiming to eliminate its Hamas rulers.
The U.S. has called on Israel to scale back its offensive and said that the establishment of a Palestinian state should be part of the “day after.”
But in a nationally broadcast news conference, Netanyahu vowed to press ahead with the offensive until Israel realizes a “decisive victory over Hamas.” He also rejected the idea of Palestinian statehood. He said he had relayed his positions to the Americans.
“In any future arrangement … Israel needs security control all territory west of the Jordan,” Netanyahu told a nationally broadcast news conference. “This collides with the idea of sovereignty. What can you do?”
“The prime minister needs to be capable of saying no to our friends,” he added.
More than 100 days after Hamas triggered the war with its Oct. 7 attack, Israel continues to wage one of the deadliest and most destructive military campaigns in recent history, with the goal of dismantling the militant group that has ruled Gaza since 2007 and returning scores of captives. The war has stoked tensions across the region, threatening to ignite other conflicts.
More than 24,600 Palestinians have been killed, some 85% of the narrow coastal territory’s 2.3 million people have fled their homes, and the United Nations says a quarter of the population is starving.
Hundreds of thousands have heeded Israeli evacuation orders and packed into southern Gaza, where shelters run by the United Nations are overflowing and massive tent camps have gone up. Israel has continued to strike what it says are militant targets in all parts of Gaza, often killing women and children.
Early Thursday, medics said an Israeli airstrike on a home killed 16 people, half of them children, in the southern Gaza town of Rafah.
Dr. Talat Barhoum at Rafah’s el-Najjar Hospital confirmed the toll and said dozens more were wounded. Associated Press footage from the hospital showed relatives weeping over the bodies of loved ones.
“They were suffering from hunger, they were dying from hunger, and now they have also been hit,” said Mahmoud Qassim, a relative of some of those who were killed.
Footage emerged Thursday of Israeli troops blowing up the main campus of a university outside Gaza City in a controlled detonation — one of multiple universities they have destroyed. The video, apparently taken by drone, showed a giant explosion engulfing the complex of buildings of Al-Israa University.
The university, a private institution founded in 2014, said in a statement that its main building for graduate studies and bachelor’s colleges were destroyed. It said Israeli forces seized the complex 70 days ago and used it as a base. It was unclear when the explosion took place. The Israeli army had no immediate comment.
According to Hamas, Israeli forces have destroyed more than 390 schools, universities, and educational institutions across Gaza.
Internet and mobile services in Gaza have been down for five days, the longest of several outages during the war, according to internet access advocacy group NetBlocks. The outages complicate rescue efforts and make it difficult to obtain information about the latest strikes and casualties.
There was meanwhile no word on whether medicines that entered the territory Wednesday as part of a deal brokered by France and Qatar had been distributed to dozens hostages with chronic illnesses who are being held by Hamas.
WAR REVERBERATES ACROSS REGION
The war has rippled across the Middle East, with Iran-backed groups attacking U.S. and Israeli targets. Low-intensity fighting between Israel and Hezbollah militants in Lebanon threatens to erupt into all-out war, and Houthi rebels in Yemen continue to target international shipping despite United States-led airstrikes.
The Israeli military said it fired an interceptor at a “suspicious aerial target” — likely a drone or missile — approaching over the Red Sea on Thursday, triggering air raid sirens in the southern Israeli coastal city of Eilat. The Houthis have launched drones and missiles toward Israel that mostly fell short or were intercepted and shot down.
Iran has meanwhile launched a series of missile attacks targeting what it described as an Israeli spy base in Iraq and militant bases in Syria as well as in Pakistan, which carried out reprisal strikes against what it…
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