Israel has four war aims, says Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: “To destroy Hamas, to bring back all of our hostages, to ensure that Gaza will no longer present a threat to Israel, and to return safely the residents of the northern border.”
The last war aim was added in recent days at the urging of Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.
“Three of those war goals go through one place,” he stresses. “The Philadelphi Corridor. That is Hamas’s pipeline for oxygen and rearmament.”
He then uses a map of Israel and Gaza to explain why Israeli control of the Egypt-Gaza border is critical to Israel’s security.
Netanyahu explains that after the 2005 Disengagement, Israel controlled all of Gaza’s borders except the one with Egypt, and that is where weapons reached the Strip. “Gaza turned into a massive threat to Israel.”
The prime minister also criticizes Egypt for failing to secure the border, saying the entry of weapons, the means to make weapons, and the means to dig tunnels, did not only occur under Muslim Brotherhood President Mohammad Morsi, but also under Hosni Mubarak and “others” – that is, President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi.
Netanyahu insists his governments fought against this military build-up over the years, but laments there was not international or domestic legitimacy to retake Gaza.
He says that 20 years ago, he insisted that Israel maintain control over the Philadelphi Corridor as then-prime minister Ariel Sharon presented his disengagement plan, and that he restated that imperative in a letter to Sharon when resigning from his government.
“The axis of evil needs the Philadelphi Axis,” he says, arguing that this is the precise reason Israel “must control it.”
“We must make permanent the fact that we are there,” says Netanyahu.
He blasts the argument that the IDF can return to Philadelphi after the first phase of the deal, comparing it to past promises that Israel could and would return to Lebanon and Gaza if there were any attacks from those newly evacuated territories.
“It’s not a tactical military question,” he says, but rather “a diplomatic, strategic imperative.”
“It’s a question of massive diplomatic pressure that will be applied to us by the entire world: If we leave, we will not return. We will not return.”
He says the pressure Israel faced to try to discourage it from going into Rafah would be nothing compared to the pressure to keep Israel from going back to the Philadelphi Corridor, which would include efforts by the United Nations Security Council.
“This corridor is different from all the other places — it is central, it determines all of our future,” he says.
“Everyone recognizes the importance” of Israel retaining control of the Philadelphi Corridor, he says, “but they all want us to end the war.”
Leaving the corridor “will not bring back the hostages. The opposite. The opposite,” he says, arguing that Hamas showed a willingness to reach a deal only when Israel went into Rafah and Philadelphi.
Withdrawing from Egypt-Gaza border would enable Hamas to spirit hostages to Iran — PM
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