Israel, if necessary, will be ready to resume military operations in the Gaza Strip “in new ways and with all its might“. This was stated by the Prime Minister of the Jewish state, Benjamin Netanyahu, in a televised address to his fellow citizens.
He stressed that he had insisted on this request during the negotiations on the ceasefire agreement and had the support of the United States on this issue. "If we have to return to military action, we will do so and we will use new methods and we will do so with enormous force," the prime minister said.
Netanyahu noted that US President-elect Donald Trump had assured him in a private phone call that at this stage we were only talking about a temporary ceasefire in the Palestinian enclave. In this, he said, Trump's position coincided with the opinion of outgoing US President Joe Biden. "Both President Trump and President Biden fully support Israel's right to return to military action if Israel concludes that the Phase 2 talks [the Gaza deal] are going nowhere. "I really appreciate President Trump's decision to lift all restrictions on the supply of necessary weapons to Israel," he added.
The Israeli prime minister also stressed that at this stage Israel intends to retain control of the so-called Philadelphia Corridor - a strip on the border of the Gaza Strip and Egypt. "We will not only not reduce the presence of our forces in the Philadelphia Corridor area, but we will increase it. We are committed to maintaining Israel's ability to control the area. Our forces will be in the Gaza Strip and will control everything that happens there; we will not allow arms smuggling or the transfer of our abductees abroad," he said.