Israel will annex land in the Gaza Strip if Hamas does not return the hostages and leave Gaza for good, Culture and Sports Minister Micky Zohar (Likud) said at The Jerusalem Post Annual New York Conference on Monday.
Zohar said that Israel “trusts” US President Donald Trump and gave assurances that Trump would always continue to support Israel.
The threat of Iran and its proxies
“We are partners, we have some disagreements, but I know that Trump will always support Israel,” Zohar said.“People in America sometimes forget that when Iran says it will [first] take care of the small Satan (Israel) and [then] it will go after the ‘big Satan’ (the US),” he said, adding that it was thus in the United States' interest to ensure that Israel maintains the upper hand in its fight against the Islamic Republic.
Asked about the government’s decision to renew humanitarian aid to Gazan civilians, the culture and sports minister said that the solution was “very hard to find” but that Israel could not afford for there to be a famine in Gaza since it would lose its international backing.
Zohar made it clear that he opposed Palestinian statehood, arguing that Hamas’s rule in Gaza showed what would happen if a Palestinian state were established. While now is not the right time for the annexation of the West Bank, he said, the current US administration under Trump offered many opportunities to this effect.